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The purpose of this case study is to investigate how the personnel in an organization experienced the process of change when moving from private offices to an activity-based office (ABO) and how their perceptions of change were associated with changes in their satisfaction with the work environment a year after relocation.

A comparative pre-post study design and mixed methods were used. Survey data was obtained from 154 employees before the relocation and 146 after the relocation. The data on the 105 employees who responded to both surveys were statistically analyzed. Representatives of different units were interviewed (n = 17) and documentary material was analyzed as complementary material.

The personnel’s criticisms concerned the reasons for the change, their opportunities to influence the office design and the extent to which their views were taken into account. Environmental satisfaction decreased after moving to the ABO. The personnel’s ratings of the workplace change process before the relocation were associated with the later change in environmental satisfaction. Based on logistic regression, the degree of agreement with management’s reasons for the change was the strongest predictor of the change in environmental satisfaction.

Organizations that move from private offices to an ABO should invest in high-quality change management and simultaneously develop both work and facilities. Special attention should be paid to clarifying the rationale for the change to the employees and to providing them with opportunities to influence during the change. Organizations should continue to monitor user experiences and evaluate the effects of the change after the office redesign and should take corrective action as needed.

This empirical case study is unique as it combined qualitative and quantitative methods and investigated the process of relocation and its outcomes in a one-year follow-up. This approach captured the importance of managing change and assessing the long-term effects of office redesign when moving from private offices to an ABO.

This article examines the experiences of women leaders and their challenges in Brunei Darussalam. Globally, women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Though the Brunei government does not discriminate against any gender in delivering free education, medical facilities and healthcare, women in leadership positions are as well underrepresented. I try to understand the factors that challenge as well as motivate women to become leaders in Brunei. For this research, I conducted qualitative interviews with some respondents selected purposively. The study results show that women leaders in Brunei face challenges in obtaining financial support and accessing resources. Despite the challenges, there are some women who have been assuming and excelling in their leadership roles. The study identified that personal strengths have also been critical in contributing to their successful leadership.

Groundwater resources are the primary source of meeting the water demand in Bangladesh. In rural areas, hand-pumped tube wells have been the primary source of drinking water. Though studies claim that Bangladesh has the potential to achieve universal safe drinking water supply coverage, the presence of excessive arsenic in the shallow groundwater sources, and the encroachment of salinity in the coastal aquifers in coastal regions (Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Patuakhali, Jhalakathi, Pirojpur, Barisal, Barguna etc.) hind the path. The concerned authorities of government and other non-government organizations assist the coastal people with alternative technologies like Desalination Plant, Arsenic-Iron Removal Plant, Pond Sand Filtration (PSF), Managed Aquifer Recharge, Rainwater Harvesting System, Installation of Shallow, and Deep Tube Wells. But based on case studies and surveys, this article shows how these existing technologies fail to ensure water safety within the coastal areas. The Singaporean water management policy is an example, this article advocates for necessary government intervention to ensure safe drinking water in coastal areas.

Global crises have become increasingly recurrent events that jeopardize public-private partnerships (PPPs). In this context, the purpose of this paper is to expose the PPP-crisis research agenda by combining bibliometric and network analyses.

The PPP literature associated with global crises between the 2008 global financial crisis and 2022 was analyzed in three stages: (1) paper selection and screening for the inclusion/exclusion of articles relevant to this research, (2) semantic network development for examining thematic relationships among selected papers by considering the co-occurrence of keywords within the chosen studies and (3) calculation of network metrics for analysis.

The paper identified six research avenues for the PPP-crisis agenda: public interest, relational governance, risk management, user-pay PPPs, crisis management and financial performance. The PPP-crisis literature has spread significantly in the last five years driven by the case study approaches on a national or regional basis. Conversely, non-crisis periods generate room to strengthen user-pay PPPs and relational governance. The pandemic and post-pandemic times shared the priorities of the 2008 financial crisis but also strengthened the management of the risks and the structural drivers of the global crisis.

This study demonstrates that during global crisis periods, the public interest and financial performance gain relevance in a detriment of structural solutions to social legitimacy erosion of PPPs because of the urgency of giving tools to the public and private sectors to tackle the financial issues, which steer future issues for PPPs.

We have developed in this paper a morphological disambiguation hybrid system for the Arabic language that identifies the stem, lemma and root of a given sentence words. Following an out-of-context analysis performed by the morphological analyser Alkhalil Morpho Sys, the system first identifies all the potential tags of each word of the sentence. Then, a disambiguation phase is carried out to choose for each word the right solution among those obtained during the first phase. This problem has been solved by equating the disambiguation issue with a surface optimization problem of spline functions. Tests have shown the interest of this approach and the superiority of its performances compared to those of the state of the art.

In order to reduce the health impacts of air pollution effectively, developing strategies that involves individual or community level is crucial. The purpose of this paper is to assess people’s protective practices for inhalable particulate matter and its significant determinants such as general characteristics, knowledge and attitude among residents of an urban residential area, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

This cross-sectional study was conducted by systematic random sampling. A total of 424 people, who lived in that area for not less than two years before the survey, were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. χ² and Fisher’s exact test were used to analyze the data.

Only a small proportion of respondents had high practice level. In addition, a little more than half has high level of knowledge about inhalable particulate matter, its adverse health effects and protective practices and almost 70 percent had high level of attitude toward air pollution. The protective practices for small inhalable particulate matter was significantly associated with age, educational level, occupation, knowledge and attitude toward small inhalable particulate matter, its adverse health effects and protective measures.

A good level of knowledge about the prevailing air pollution and related health risks can be crucial to develop more focused attempt at changing the current situation with public participation. The environmental experts and health volunteer should disseminate precise and adequate information about long-term health hazards of particulate matter and measures of exposure prevention to improve the protective practices.

The purpose of this study is to test the performance of the designed automatic control system based on the Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) and Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) algorithms during landing of the helicopter on the ship deck. This paper is a further development of the series based on Topczewski et al. (2020).

The system consists of two automatic control algorithms based on LQR and the LQG. It is integrated with the ship motion prediction system based on autoregressive algorithm with parameters calculated using Burg’s method. It is assumed that the source of necessary navigation data is integrated Inertial Navigation System with Global Positioning System. Landing of the helicopter on the ship deck is performed in automatic way, based on the preselected procedure. Performance of the control system is analyzed when all necessary navigation data is available for the system and in case when one of the parameters is unavailable during performing the procedure.

In this paper, description of the designed control system developed for performing the approach and landing of the helicopter using selected procedure is presented. Helicopter dynamic model is validated using the manufacturer data and by test pilots, overview is presented. Necessary information about ship motion model is also included. Tests showing mission performance while using LQR and LQG algorithms applied to the control system are presented and analyzed, taking into account both situations when full navigation data is available/unavailable for the control system.

Results of the system performance analyses can be used for selection of the proper control methodology for prospective helicopters autopilots. Furthermore, the system can be used to analyze the mission safety when information about one of the navigation parameters is identified by the navigation system as unavailable or incorrect and therefore unavailable during landing on the ship deck.

In this paper, control system dedicated for the automatic landing of the helicopter on the ship deck, based on two different control algorithms is presented. Influence of lack of information about one of the navigation parameters on the mission performance is analyzed.

This paper is motivated by the need to assess the risk profiles associated with the substantial number of items within military supply chains. The scale of supply chain management processes creates difficulties in both the complexity of the analysis and in performing risk assessments that are based on the manual (human analyst) assessment methods. Thus, analysts require methods that can be automated and that can incorporate on-going operational data on a regular basis.

The approach taken to address the identification of supply chain risk within an operational setting is based on aspects of multiobjective decision analysis (MODA). The approach constructs a risk and importance index for supply chain elements based on operational data. These indices are commensurate in value, leading to interpretable measures for decision-making.

Risk and importance indices were developed for the analysis of items within an example supply chain. Using the data on items, individual MODA models were formed and demonstrated using a prototype tool.

To better prepare risk mitigation strategies, analysts require the ability to identify potential sources of risk, especially in times of disruption such as natural disasters.

The present study aims to bring out the impact of consanguinity on spontaneous pregnancy loss (SPL) and on descendants’ health, among the population of north Morocco.

Convenience sampling was used for collecting data. A questionnaire was randomly administered to 385 couples represented by either the husband, the wife or both. The study lasted for three months, from January to March 2015.

In total, 238 valid questionnaires were analysed. The results showed that the consanguinity rate was 45.23% and that most consanguineous unions were between first cousins (91%). Data analysis revealed that SPL risk was similar in consanguineous and non-consanguineous couples (OR = 1.6; IC95% = 0.9–2.9). Also, no significant difference was observed in terms of SPL type (OR = 1.6; IC95% = 0.7–3.9) and frequency (p = 0.81). However, late SPL frequency was significantly lower in consanguineous couples (p < 0.001), whereas no significant difference was registered in terms of early SPL frequency (p = 0.73). On the other hand, consanguineous couples displayed a significantly higher risk of descendants’ health disorders in comparison with non-consanguineous ones. Moreover, the consanguineous couples had a significantly higher number of children with health disorders (p < 0.001). The risk analysis also showed that consanguineous couples displayed a significantly higher risk of congenital malformations (OR = 7.23; IC95% = 3.52–14.84) and multifactorial diseases (OR = 3.72; IC95% = 1.46–9.49), but no significant difference was observed in terms of behavioural disorders risk.

The population awareness regarding the negative effects of consanguinity should be raised through education programmes and premarital, prenatal and genetic counselling services.

This techno-centric and too much busy day-to-day living style of citizens pressurizes the implementation of E-ticketing service to adapt with change. Thus, this study aims to examine the factors influencing railway passengers’ E-ticketing service acceptance and usage intention in Bangladesh and to extend the widely used Technology Acceptance Model through inserting two new constructs.

This paper employs structural equation modeling to test model’s paths developed through theoretical research framework. Moreover, a structured questionnaire was administered at different railway stations in northern and western parts of Bangladesh to collect data. Total of 302 responses were considered for statistical analysis to test hypotheses after considering anomalies and outliers in raw data.

The study results show that technology trust (TT) has the strongest impact on passengers’ E-ticketing usage intention rather than perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness (PU). Meanwhile, the easiness of using technology to reserve tickets does matter to female passengers rather than male passengers wherein PU and TT do not do that.

The findings of this study might be helpful for the railway authorities to improve the ticket reservation service quality online by developing the advanced booking application and minimizing the pressure on other transportation. Therefore, this empirical study will contribute to this domain for further study that ensures full satisfaction of passengers and uplift the railway passengers’ usage intention for E-ticketing which then helps the government to implement the digitization slogan with efficiency and effectiveness.