Descriptive Study of Safety and Health Training Content in Iranian Universities and Higher Education Institutes

The root cause of many workplace incidents is the lack of knowledge on occupational safety and health principles. Despite the safety and health authorities in organizations, safety and health is the general responsibility of all other experts working in an organization. Experts and managers are expected to think, decide and work safely in workplaces. However, we don’t have enough information about the level of safety and health-related education when they were in universities. In addition, there is not too much reliable published reports on the academic teaching of safety and health courses and syllabus in higher education in Iran. Therefore, the current study was aimed to provide a general view of the status of occupational safety and health teaching subjects in different academic disciplines (excluding specialized fields in occupational safety and health) in the Iranian higher educational system. Firstly, the latest edition of the entire program (curricula) of all academic disciplines held in Iranian universities was downloaded. Secondly, the required information, including discipline title, program’s degree, number of required (core) and elective (non-core) courses, and program’s date of approval, were recorded in an Excel sheet. Every course’s title and syllabus were then studied to find out any safety and health-related topics. Finally, data were analyzed and reported. 251 academic disciplines in the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) and 771 disciplines in the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT) were investigated. Most of the curriculums have been revised by both ministries since 2011. Results showed that 20 percent of the MOHME‎ ‎disciplines and 10.4 percent of MSRT‎ disciplines were included in the occupational safety and health courses. The number of courses with health and safety content (syllabus outline) in the MOHME ‎‎and the MSRT‎ were 168 and 173. Most health and safety courses presented in the MOHME academic majors were in the basic medical sciences category of disciplines. A majority of MSRT covered academic safety and health courses and topics were presented in the engineering category of disciplines. Presenting lessons with health and safety content at the MOHME ‎was more practical than that of the MSRT. The quality and quantity of teaching on safety and health topic were not at satisfactory levels. Revising the course syllabus of the academic disciplines and adding theoretical and practical courses related to each field's specific health and safety curriculum can make a significant contribution in improving the general knowledge of the safety and health of the university graduates. In turn, it improves future workplace safety and health conditions, managers’ insights and decision-makers on the importance of safety and health at work. It protects the people's life and the property of the organization.

Quantifying the dynamics of nearly 100 years of dominance hierarchy research

Dominance hierarchies have been studied for almost 100 years. The science of science approach used here provides high-level insight into how the dynamics of dominance hierarchy research have shifted over this long timescale. To summarize these patterns, I extracted publication metadata using a Google Scholar search for the phrase ‘dominance hierarchy’, resulting in over 26 000 publications. I used text mining approaches to assess patterns in three areas: (1) general patterns in publication frequency and rate, (2) dynamics of term usage and (3) term co-occurrence in publications across the history of the field. While the overall number of publications per decade continues to rise, the percent growth rate has fallen in recent years, demonstrating that although there is sustained interest in dominance hierarchies, the field is no longer experiencing the explosive growth it showed in earlier decades. Results from title term co-occurrence networks and community structure show that the different subfields of dominance hierarchy research were most strongly separated early in the field’s history while modern research shows more evidence for cohesion and a lack of distinct term community boundaries. These methods provide a general view of the history of research on dominance hierarchies and can be applied to other fields or search terms to gain broad synthetic insight into patterns of interest, especially in fields with large bodies of literature. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The centennial of the pecking order: current state and future prospects for the study of dominance hierarchies’.

Yoga and Health

In recent decades, yoga has been studied for its potential to treat current epidemic diseases such as mental stress, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Individual studies have found that yoga has a therapeutic impact on certain disorders, indicating that it may be used as a nonpharmaceutical strategy or as a supplement to pharmacological therapy for these conditions. However, for therapeutic objectives, these research have only employed yoga asana, pranayama, and/or brief durations of meditation. Yoga's general view is likewise the same, which is incorrect. Yoga actually refers to the merging of individual consciousness with the divine awareness. Yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, and samadhi are the eight rungs or limbs of yoga..

Wanawa: Afrika prekolonial, un introdukshon

Wanawa Precolonial Africa: An Introduction focuses on the history and culture of the African continent before it was colonized by Europe. Many people still associate Africa only with the history of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery and neglect the fact that this continent has a rich and diverse history. As this book explains, the history of Africa did not start with the transatlantic slave trade, and Africa is not merely a victim of colonialism but an agent of its own history and rich culture. The intention of this book is to highlight and thereby broaden the knowledge of Africa’s historical, economic, cultural and social diversity. This book is a brief introduction in Papiamentu to the history and culture of precolonial Africa, with the aim of stimulating people to dig deeper into this subject themselves. Its purpose is to provide a general view of the continent’s flora and fauna, to illustrate how large and small states rose, developed and sometimes fell over the course of time, and to shed light on historically significant persons, while also mentioning these states in some cases were connected to the transatlantic slave trade. In addition, the book provides insight into the diverse and heterogeneous cultures of the continent. Rose Mary Allen (Curaçao, 1950) is an anthropologist and Extraordinary Professor of the Chair of Culture, Community and History at the University of Curaçao Dr. Moises da Costa Gomez. She has published many books and articles on migration, slavery, music, oral history, the dynamics of identity formation, modern nationalism, and gender issues. She is a recipient of the Boeli van Leeuwen Award and of the 2015 Cola Debrot Award for her contribution to the sciences.

Knowledge Transfer through Computer-based Systems in Manufacturing Networks: A Study on Albanian Plants

This study shows a general view about knowledge transfer between manufacturing plants in developing countries like Albania, which are part of multinational companies’ network (MCN). Part of this goal is the study of computer-based systems from conference calls and intranets to more advanced ones like data warehouses, management information systems (MIS) and executive information systems (EIS), as enablers of knowledge flow and absorptive capacity. The paper examines four case studies based on semi-structured interviews, where the data collected highlight a good coverage of computer-based systems in function of knowledge sharing. In half of the cases, this is done internally in the plant and not over the network of plants. We propose to upgrade where possible the systems used in a distributed way to have data and information connections across the network. In some cases, emerge barriers such as lack of time, lack of tolerance for errors, or the need for assistance. Conclusions show that staff training related to computer-based systems in the optics of knowledge enablers is important for the companies, while the incentives are not considered as a key factor for knowledge transfer. Received: 15 July 2021 / Accepted: 23 September 2021 / Published: 3 January 2022

Fire Investigation and Ignitable Liquid Residue Analysis

A fire investigation is a difficult and challenging task. An investigator's basic task at a fire scene is two-fold: first, to ascertain the origin of the fire and, second, to closely investigate the site of origin and try to determine what triggered a fire to start at or near that spot. Usually, an investigation would begin by attempting to obtain a general view of the site and the fire damage; this may be achieved at ground level or from an elevated location. Following this, one may examine the materials available, the fuel load, and the condition of the debris at different locations. Surprisingly, the science of fire investigation is not stagnant, and each year, more information to assist investigators in determining the location and cause of a fire by diligent observation of the scene and laboratory study of fire debris is released. This chapter is split into two sections. The first section discusses the general procedures to be used during a fire investigation, and the second section discusses laboratory analysis of ignitable liquid residue analysis.

What is the Nature of Language? How does it Behave? What is Language Learning then? A Review Paper in Applied Linguistics

Language is viewed differently by people from different fields, and one of the reasons why linguists and philosophers encounter difficulties in clarifying what the study of language should involve has to do with the general view that language means many things to people from different disciplines. This paper provides a comprehensive and analytical discussion patterning to the nature of language, theories, methods, and approaches to language teaching and learning based on a literature review. In particular, the paper answers questions of what is the nature of language, what is involved in the study of a language and how does it behave? And how language can be taught effectively? To address these questions, the paper has reviewed various studies on the definition of language and the trend in trying to define language. Also, it has examined how much scholars have defined language economically, but adequately, and it has discussed the nature of language and its assumptions or theories, then it has indicated how language can be best taught. The review indicates that there are conflicting claims about the nature of language, and thus, it is difficult to define the nature of language or to tie it down to one statement, for it means many things to different people. The paper concludes that it is difficult to define the nature of language comprehensively in one statement, and the concept of language teaching is mainly influenced by the idea of the nature of language, and on how language is taught and learnt. Therefore, success in language teaching depends on the learning environment, how a teacher views what is a language or the nature of language and on the motivations of learning provided to the learners.

Effective Pedagogy in Primary Education: A Review of Current Literatures

The implementation of effective pedagogy in instructional strategies is an interesting discussion among educationists due to the rapidly transformation in educational context. The aims of this study is to identify the current literature related to effective pedagogy in primary education and highlights its categories in teaching learning situation. The method used in this study is literature approach by reviewing 15 current journal articles in five years, from 2017 to May 2021. The study shows that several characteristics of effective pedagogy still attract the researchers to discuss in their papers during the current five years. The fundamental characteristics of effective pedagogy frequently highlighted in primary education are: classroom management, teachers` competences, instructional strategies, valuable learning, and students` achievement. The conclusion of this study, several current literatures highlight that the effective pedagogy is the general view of teachers to specify their action to carry out the new strategies, approaches, and methods to fostering primary school pupils.