Hazard identification and pre-map with a simple specific tool: synthesis of application experience in handicrafts in various productive sectors

In August 2009, an international group was founded with the task of developing a "toolkit for MSD prevention" under the IEA and in collaboration with the World Health Organization.According to the ISO standard 11228 series and the new Draft ISO TR 12259 "Application document guides for the potential user", our group developed a preliminary "mapping" methodology of occupational hazards in the craft industry, supported by software (Excel?, free download on: www.epmresearch.org).The possible users of toolkits are: members of health and safety committees; health and safety representatives; line supervisors; foremen; workers; government representatives; health workers providing basic occupational health services; occupational health and safety specialists.The proposed methodology, using specific key enters and quick assessment criteria, allows a simple ergonomics hazards identification and risk estimation to be made. It is thus possible to decide for which occupational hazards a more exhaustive risk assessment will be necessary and which occupational consultant should be involved (occupational physician, safety engineer, industrial hygienist, etc.).The methodology has been applied in different situations of small and medium craftsmanship Italian enterprises: leather goods, food, technical dental work, production of artistic ceramics and stained glass, beekeeping activities. The results are synthetically reported and discussed in this paper.     

Quantitative methods in a developing country: Managers' perceptions and desires

The role of quantitative methods in business decision making has been a subject of much discussion in the literature. Most of this discussion has emanated from developed countries. In this paper, the current practice in a developing country is examined, as well as the desires and perceptions of management. It is evident that the current practice lags that of the developed countries. Moreover, while the practice in companies with international association is not markedly different from local companies, the management of these companies desire a situation closer to that found in the developed countries. It is suggested that adequately trained personnel are not currently available and that a career orientated masters programme in quantitative methods is necessary in developing countries.     

Measuring Change Over Time in Socio-economic Deprivation and Health in an Urban Context: The Case Study of Genoa

Poverty and disability are interrelated, but data that can disentangle to what extent one causes the other and vice versa is not available. However, data from Vietnam allows us to examine this interrelationship in a way not done previously. Using small area estimation techniques, we uncover three findings not yet found in the literature. First, disability prevalence rates vary significantly within a country even at the district level. Second, the poverty gap between people with and without disabilities also varies at the district level. And most importantly, the size of that gap lessens based on district characteristics that can be affected by policy. Districts with better health care and infrastructure, such as road and health services, show less of a link between disability and poverty, supporting the hypothesis that improvements in infrastructure and rehabilitation service can lessen the impact of disability on families with disabled members.     

Bayesian inference for power law processes with applications in repairable systems

Statistical models for recurrent events are of great interest in repairable systems reliability and maintenance. The adopted model under minimal repair maintenance is frequently a nonhomogeneous Poisson process with the power law process (PLP) intensity function. Although inference for the PLP is generally based on maximum likelihood theory, some advantages of the Bayesian approach have been reported in the literature. In this paper it is proposed that the PLP intensity be reparametrized in terms of (β,η), where β is the elasticity of the mean number of events with respect to time and η is the mean number of events for the period in which the system was actually observed. It is shown that β and η are orthogonal and that the likelihood becomes proportional to a product of gamma densities. Therefore, the family of natural conjugate priors is also a product of gammas. The idea is extended to the case that several realizations of the same PLP are observed along overlapping periods of time. Some Monte Carlo simulations are provided to study the frequentist behavior of the Bayesian estimates and to compare them with the maximum likelihood estimates. The results are applied to a real problem concerning the determination of the optimal periodicity of preventive maintenance for a set of power transformers. Prior distributions are elicited for β and η based on their operational interpretation and engineering expertise.     

Stock Exchange Markets in China: Structure and Main Problems

The capital market of Mainland China is fragmented into different stock exchanges, each one with its own peculiarities. After a review of the main literature, the paper aims at deepening their characteristics, by taking into account their specific regulation. The current analysis also shows the main statistical data in terms of size, traded volumes, number of listed companies, types of traded products of the different stock exchanges. For every phenomenon considered, the study suggests plausible explanations. The paper also provides further considerations about the main problems of alignment with the international standards.     

The Role of Proactive Coping Strategies,Time Perspective,Perceived Efficacy on Affect Regulation,Divergent Thinking and Family Communication in Promoting Social Well-Being in Emerging Adulthood

The study analyzed the influence of time perspective, proactive coping strategies, perceived self-efficacy in affect regulation, divergent thinking and perceived quality of family communication on social well-being in a sample of 232 emerging adults. Social well-being showed positive correlations with proactive coping strategies, future-oriented time perspective, expression of positive emotions and regulation of negative emotions, divergent thinking, open communication with parents. A problematic family communication and a present-oriented time perspective were negatively correlated with social well-being. A forward Ridge step-wise regression model was conducted, evidencing four significant positive predictors of social well-being: proactive coping, perceived efficacy in affect regulation and open communication with parents; on the contrary, present oriented time perspective contributes significantly but negatively to social well-being.     

A Computational Framework for Prime Implicants Identification in Noncoherent Dynamic Systems

Dynamic reliability methods aim at complementing the capability of traditional static approaches (e.g., event trees [ETs] and fault trees [FTs]) by accounting for the system dynamic behavior and its interactions with the system state transition process. For this, the system dynamics is here described by a time‐dependent model that includes the dependencies with the stochastic transition events. In this article, we present a novel computational framework for dynamic reliability analysis whose objectives are i) accounting for discrete stochastic transition events and ii) identifying the prime implicants (PIs) of the dynamic system. The framework entails adopting a multiple‐valued logic (MVL) to consider stochastic transitions at discretized times. Then, PIs are originally identified by a differential evolution (DE) algorithm that looks for the optimal MVL solution of a covering problem formulated for MVL accident scenarios. For testing the feasibility of the framework, a dynamic noncoherent system composed of five components that can fail at discretized times has been analyzed, showing the applicability of the framework to practical cases.     

RELATIONSHIP LENDING DURING A FINANCIAL CRISIS

This paper studies whether relationship lending mitigates the transmission of the Lehman default shock to the supply of credit in Italy. Exploiting the presence of multiple banking relationships, we control for banks' and firms' unobserved characteristics. Results show that the growth of credit itself is higher and its cost lower the shorter the distance between the bank and the firm, the longer the relationship, and the higher the share of credit held by the bank. Credit growth by relationship lenders is 4.6% higher than that by transactional lenders; the increase in the cost of credit is 50 basis points lower. The positive effect of relationship lending on credit supply increased during the crisis, compared to a pre‐crisis period. The beneficial effect of relationship lending is weaker if the relationship lender is more exposed to the financial crisis, especially when lending to weaker borrowers.     

Disability and work intensity in Italian households

Review of Economics of the Household - The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations clearly sets the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the labour market as a main goal. However, especially in care...