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This paper aims to predict fatigue life and fatigue limit of fiber-reinforced ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) with different fiber preforms, i.e. unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D-, 2.5D- and 3D-woven, at room and elevated temperatures.

Under cyclic loading, matrix multicracking and interface debonding occur upon first loading to fatigue peak stress, and the interface wear appears with increasing cycle number, leading to degradation of the interface shear stress and fibers strength. The relationships between fibers fracture, cycle number, fatigue peak stress and interface wear damage mechanism have been established based on the global load sharing (GLS) criterion. The evolution of fibers broken fraction versus cycle number curves of fiber-reinforced CMCs at room and elevated temperatures have been obtained.

The predicted fatigue life S–N curve can be divided into two regions, i.e. the Region I controlled by the degradation of interface shear stress and fibers strength and the Region II controlled by the degradation of fibers strength.

The proposed approach can be used to predict the fatigue life and fatigue limit of unidirectional, cross-ply, 2D-, 2.5D- and 3D-woven CMCs under cyclic loading.

The fatigue damage mechanisms and fibers failure model were combined together to predict the fatigue life and fatigue limit of fiber-reinforced CMCs with different fiber preforms.

At present, the majority of industrial robots are not well suited to the specific needs of the food industry. Additionally, the high cost of robotic systems means that it is currently difficult for food manufacturers to financially justify the use of this technology. This paper aims to examine the unique requirements of the food industry with regards to robot manipulator design and outlines the design features of a low‐cost robotic arm developed specifically for use in food production.

Considerations for the design of the robot arm in addition to industrial requirements for hygienic design, low cost, fast pick and place speed, safety for operation alongside human workers and ease of reprogramming are discussed in detail.

A successful manipulator design must consider functional requirements relevant to food production from the very outset of the design process. The principal three requirements are those of ease of cleaning, speed and low cost.

The availability of low‐cost industrial robots specifically designed for food production might encourage a wider adoption of robotics and automation in the food industry and would benefit food manufacturers by reducing production costs and increasing competitiveness in what is becoming an increasingly difficult market.

This paper is of value to engineers and researchers developing robotic manipulators for use in the food industry.

The purpose of this paper is to assess unit manager perspectives on the introduction of a group-based trauma-specific programme delivered across Scotland’s secure estate. As this was the first time such an estate-wide initiative had occurred, it was important to identify the benefits/challenges at a strategic level.

An exploratory qualitative case study was utilised involving semi-structured interviews with five senior unit managers in three secure units to discover their perceptions of the benefits and challenges of implementing Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT). A quasi-qualitative analysis was used to quantify and give meaning to manager responses. Inter-rater reliability of analysis was assessed.

Unit managers perceived gains in trauma-informed knowledge for themselves, and knowledge and skills gains for programme workers, care staff and adolescents. Challenges involved: managing a shift in paradigm to include a trauma-specific programme; the limiting context of competitive tendering; short duration placements; and the need for psychoeducation for staff, parents and agencies.

Large sample sizes are likely to identify further issues for unit managers. Manager perceptions need directly compared with staff and adolescent perceptions and included in randomised control trials of trauma-specific programmes.

Managers perceived that TRT needed to be delivered within trauma-informed organisations and identified the need for manager training in traumatisation, trauma recovery and organisational implications to guide strategic planning. Managers emphasised the need for psychoeducation for families, staff and agencies.

The current study is the first in Scotland to explore unit manager experience of introducing a trauma-specific programme across the secure estate.

Improving hospital patient flow has become a policy priority, to effectively balance the increasing demands of an unknown and variable volume of patients with limited available hospital resources. A systematic literature review was conducted in order to identify actions, actors involved and enablers in improving hospital patient flow. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Searches were conducted in Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE and The Cochrane Library for quantitative and qualitative empirical primary studies with patients (adults) receiving inpatient acute hospital care. The study protocol was based on PRISMA-P guidance. A critical appraisal of included studies was performed by using the Quality Improvement Minimum Quality Criteria Set.

In total, 38 key papers were identified. A wide range of actions are reported, but most studies focus on one or a few departments instead of a whole hospital. Process efficiency is most often used as a performance indicator, clinical outcomes are poorly analyzed, and patients’ expectations and experience are rarely considered. Top-management commitment and front-line staff involvement are considered key factors for the success of implementations. Patient involvement in the process improvement is rarely mentioned.

Achieving improvements in hospital patient flow requires the design and implementation of complex, multifaceted and coordinated interventions. This study may be of value to healthcare managers, helping them to act effectively in their context, and to researchers of future studies including the different variables and the patient’s perspective.

Previous research studies have noted that veterinarians are up to four times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. Studies have indicated possible catalysts for this increased risk, including exposure to euthanasia, depression, burnout, compassion fatigue, occupational stress, work–life imbalance and anxiety. With female veterinarians reporting higher rates of mental health issues and the fact that the ratio of female to male veterinarians is almost 2:1, the study focused on the female veterinarian population. Few research studies have been conducted to examine stressors directly related to human factors. The present study aims to examine the path to depression and burnout as it relates to positive versus negative interactions with human clients (owners of animal patients).

The study recruited 222 female veterinarians online (average age = 36.89). The participants completed three scales measuring (1) burnout; (2) depression, anxiety and stress; and (3) positive and negative experiences with human clients.

Using the structural equation modeling (SEM), the results showed contrasting patterns of positive versus negative client-related experience in relation to burnout and depression. Positive client experience showed a direct path to the lower levels of depression and client-related burnout while negative client experience revealed a non-direct path to depression but a direct path to more specific burnout such as client-related and work-related burnout.

Results of the study offered insight into the unique contribution of client-related experience in burnout and depression as positive versus negative client experience took on differential paths to depression and burnout.

This study discusses that the necessary criteria and the solution approach taken to resolve the main spatial infection problems with a burn center design should be evaluated holistically to achieve spatial infection control in a burn center. The burn center design plays an important role in protecting severely burned patients from infection because the microbial flora of the hospital can affect the infection risk. In hospitals, sterilization and disinfection are the basic components of infection prevention; however, the prevention and control of infection for burn patients also requires the design of burn centers that adhere to a specific set of criteria that considers spatial infection control in addition to appropriate burn treatment methods and treatments. In this study, a burn facility converted from a burn unit into a burn center is introduced and the necessary design inputs for the transformation are discussed because there is no holistic study in the literature that delas with all the spaces that should be in a burn center and relations between spaces. This study aims to define the functional relations between each of the units and the spaces that change according to different sterilization demands in the burn center for ensuring spatial infection control. Furthermore, it aims to propose a method for ensuring continuity in the control of spatial infections.

The burn care and health facilities guidelines are examined within the framework of spatial standards, together with a comprehensive literature review. The design method was based on the spread of microorganisms and the effect of human movement on space and spatial transitions in the burn center, according to all relevant literature reviews. To determine the extent to which the differences in treatment protocols of burn care guidelines were reflected in the space, interviews were conducted with burn facility officials. The plan–do–check–act (PDCA) method is also modeled to ensure the continuity of infection control in the burn center.

The burn center design findings are classified under three main headings, namely, location of the burn center in the hospital, spatial organization and physical features of the burn center and the air flowing system. The importance of the interactions among the criteria for spatial infection control has been revealed. Due to the physical space characteristics and air flow characteristics that change according to human movement and the way microorganisms spread, it has been seen that designing the air flow and architectural aspects together has an effective role in providing spatial infection control. Accordingly, a functional relation scheme for the center has been suggested. It is also proposed as a model to ensure the continuity of infection control in the burn center.

This research presents spatial measures for infection control in burn centers for practitioners in health-care settings such as designers, engineers, doctors and nurses. The PDCA method also leads to continuity of infection control for hospital management.

This is the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to focus on developing the criteria for spatial infection control in burn center. Moreover, the aim is to create a function chart that encompasses the relationships between the units within the burn center design so that infection control can be coordinated spatially.

The use of exercise as an intervention to improve health in the general population is well documented. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether an exercise referral scheme can be an effective health promotion tool for male prisoners in Ireland, presenting with mental health symptoms.

This mixed methods study with a pre- and post-intervention design was conducted in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, which has a capacity for approximately 790 prisoners. Reliable and validated symptom assessment scales were used to assess levels of depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem and anger amongst a sample of 40 prisoners pre- and post-intervention. The scales used were the Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale or DASS-42 (Lovibond and Lovibond, 1995), the Novaco Anger Scale (Novaco, 1994), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and the Zung Self-Rated Anxiety Scale (Zung, 1971). Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with a subset of the participants post-intervention to further test and contextualise the symptom ratings. The data gathered from the self-rating scales were imported into SPSS 22 for statistical testing for significance. Wilcoxon’s signed-rank test was then used to measure significance of changes. Thematic analysis was performed on the qualitative data.

In the post-intervention, significant levels of improvement were achieved in the levels of depression, anxiety (DASS), anxiety (Zung), stress, anger, and self-esteem for 29 of the 30 prisoners who completed the study. The incidence of normal mood scores rose from 33 to 90 per cent after the intervention; the incidence of extremely severe scores for anxiety changed from 40 to 7 per cent, severe stress scores changed from 27 to 3 per cent, normal stress levels rose from 17 to 73 per cent, marked anger ratings reduced from 40 to 3 per cent and low self-esteem levels reduced from 20 per cent of participants pre-intervention to 7 per cent post-intervention. In the main, participants perceived the experiences and outcomes of the intervention positively.

There are some limitations to the design of this study. Operational circumstances within the prison at the start of this study prevented the authors from accessing a larger sample. A control group would add greatly to the study but this was not possible within a single prison setting. The possible influence of extraneous variables such as increased attention and social contact, and more time out of one’s cell may have contributed to improved symptom scores as much as the exercise intervention in this study. This possibility was recognised from the outset but the authors proceeded because the aim was to test if an exercise referral package (and all that inevitably goes with that) would make a difference for symptomatic prisoners.

The organisation and smooth running of the intervention and the positive results therein underpinned the practicality of this project. The significantly positive results contribute new knowledge to the profile of Irish male prisoners’ mental health.

This study could be the foundation for a larger study or set of studies which should include a control group and one or more female prisoner cohorts. The impact of positive changes in prisoners’ mental health on the prison staff and environment could also be researched. This type of study could lead to important social implications in relation to its impact on prisoner rehabilitation.

This study was the first of its kind to explore the effectiveness of exercise referral as a health promotion intervention for Irish male prisoners presenting with mental health symptoms.

This paper aims to propose lean-based interventions that address the main causes of emergency department overcrowding. Emergency department overcrowding (EDOC) and increased length of stay (LOS) have been key global issues for more than 20 years, as they have serious repercussions. No measurements have been done to assess the situation nationally. Expanding emergency departments (EDs) and adding more beds have never succeeded in eliminating wastes and targeting the root causes of the problem.

This paper is a quantitative analytical applied research. The paper used direct observation for seven days to collect patient flow data on ED patients at a secondary care hospital in Kuwait. It calculated wait times and services to identify the major causes of EDOC and increased LOS.

Around one-third of the ED design capacity was used by 12 per cent of the patients who stayed >6 h each. The wasted waiting time represents 56.2 per cent of the aggregated LOS, which puts lean management (LM) on the top of the process reengineering approaches suitable for improving overcrowding by reducing waste. Guided by the LM concepts, the paper proposes solutions that fall into three themes. The selected solutions address the vital few causes of the EDOC and prolonged EDLOS.

This paper is the first study of its kind in Kuwait, and one of the most outstanding studies in the Gulf region, in terms of the number of the daily ED visits and the comprehensive multi-level proposed interventions.

The primary objective was to develop a user-centered mobile health application (app) tailored to the specific health information needs of among immigrant women from diverse backgrounds in Korea.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 immigrant women to gain insights into their health information-seeking behavior. Based on the findings, a mobile app was designed and developed. A beta version of the app underwent validation by an MD and seven expert reviewers who assessed the app for content accuracy and conformance to mobile heuristics. Last, immigrant women (n = 12) evaluated the usability of the app.

The study revealed that the interviewed immigrant women had strong health information needs related to pregnancy and parenting. Most of them used multiple sources to find and verify health information. Language barriers were identified as a major obstacle to accessing and evaluating health information. The results of the user test indicated that the app effectively facilitated study participants' search for reliable health information, meeting their specific needs.

This research extended the literature by addressing the limited availability of mobile apps tailored to the health information needs of immigrant women in Korea.

By incorporating multilingual support and focusing on pregnancy and parenting information, the health app serves as a valuable tool to bridge the gap in health information access and to facilitate the well-being of immigrant women in the country.