Impact of Commercial Decision Making in the Cost at the Pre-Tendering Stage

The Indian construction industry has the cognitive frame of operating in the cost-based approach rather than the value-based approach, and the project process and strategies are framed in such a manner to increase the profitability of the project by the organization. Nevertheless, the profitability margin of the construction project is very comparatively low compared to the other Industrial sectors. There is much reason for not attaining a higher profitability margin in the construction sector. Some of the reasons are the low innovative business plan, ineffective data-driven decision-making, ineffective management of the transaction, and construction risks.The responsibilities of increasing profitability and managing the transactional flow in the project are given to the commercial manager. The roles and responsibilities of the commercial manager vary globally. The quantity surveyor's job role further enhanced the commercial manager, where the latter can take the commercial decisions about the project.This research paper's primary outcome is the framework model for making effective decisions by the commercial manager, which increases the project's profitability. The systematic decisions, which are made in the projects by the commercial manager are studied. Considering the external factors like the COVID-19 outbreak, market condition, and existing factors affecting the decision-making process, the tools and techniques for making efficient decisions in the construction project are suggested. The synergies between these tools and techniques are studied, and a decision-making model is framed to reduce the cost and time overrun, and the benefits associated with implementing the model in the project are detailed.

Infection prevention strategies are highly protective in COVID-19 units while main risks to healthcare professionals come from coworkers and the community

Background Early evaluations of healthcare professional (HCP) COVID-19 risk occurred during insufficient personal protective equipment and disproportionate testing, contributing to perceptions of high patient-care related HCP risk. We evaluated HCP COVID-19 seropositivity after accounting for community factors and coworker outbreaks. Methods Prior to universal masking, we conducted a single-center retrospective cohort plus cross-sectional study. All HCP (1) seen by Occupational Health for COVID-like symptoms (regardless of test result) or assigned to (2) dedicated COVID-19 units, (3) units with a COVID-19 HCP outbreak, or (4) control units from 01/01/2020 to 04/15/2020 were offered serologic testing by an FDA-authorized assay plus a research assay against 67 respiratory viruses, including 11 SARS-CoV-2 antigens. Multivariable models assessed the association of demographics, job role, comorbidities, care of a COVID-19 patient, and geocoded socioeconomic status with positive serology. Results Of 654 participants, 87 (13.3%) were seropositive; among these 60.8% (N = 52) had never cared for a COVID-19 patient. Being male (OR 1.79, CI 1.05–3.04, p = 0.03), working in a unit with a HCP-outbreak unit (OR 2.21, CI 1.28–3.81, p < 0.01), living in a community with low owner-occupied housing (OR = 1.63, CI = 1.00–2.64, p = 0.05), and ethnically Latino (OR 2.10, CI 1.12–3.96, p = 0.02) were positively-associated with COVID-19 seropositivity, while working in dedicated COVID-19 units was negatively-associated (OR 0.53, CI = 0.30–0.94, p = 0.03). The research assay identified 25 additional seropositive individuals (78 [12%] vs. 53 [8%], p < 0.01). Conclusions Prior to universal masking, HCP COVID-19 risk was dominated by workplace and community exposures while working in a dedicated COVID-19 unit was protective, suggesting that infection prevention protocols prevent patient-to-HCP transmission. Article summary Prior to universal masking, HCP COVID-19 risk was dominated by workplace and community exposures while working in a dedicated COVID-19 unit was protective, suggesting that infection prevention protocols prevent patient-to-HCP transmission.

“I’m just a TA”; From mixing paints to managing safeguarding and class teaching: An exploration of teaching assistant's perceptions and roles in school

This small-scale piece of research listened to the stories, experiences and perceptions of teaching assistants to hear their lived experiences of the role of teaching assistant. To hear how expectations have altered with/without legislative and framework guidance and consideration of the individuals who take up teaching assistant roles, in a climate where there is a succinct lack of legal requirement for any training or qualifications to be undertaken prior to or during the job role. The findings indicated that there appears to be an ethos within primary educational settings that teaching assistants can ‘do it all’ at ‘all times’, that there is a lack of clarity in role and responsibilities across the ‘unqualified staff’, and furthermore that they self-position as “Just a TA”.

Vitamin D Status: A U-shaped relationship for SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity in UK healthcare workers

Background: Vitamin D has numerous mechanistic roles within the immune system. There is increasing evidence to suggest Vitamin D deficiency may increase individuals risk of COVID-19 infection and susceptibility. We aimed to determine the relationship between severity of vitamin D deficiency and sufficiency and COVID-19 infection within healthcare workers. Methods: The study included an observational cohort of healthcare workers who isolated due to COVID-19 symptoms from 12th to 22nd May 2020, from the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHBFT). This was part of the COVID-19 convalescent immunity study (COCO). Data collected included SARS-CoV-2 seroconversion status, serum 25(OH)D3 levels as well as age, body mass index (BMI), sex, ethnicity, job role, and co-morbidities. Participants were grouped into four vitamin D (VD) categories. 1) Severe VD deficiency (VD <30 nmol/L); 2) VD deficiency (VD > or equal to 30 nmol/L and <50 nmol/L); 3) VD insufficiency (VD > or equal to 50 nmol/L and <75 nmol/L); 4) VD sufficiency (VD > or equal to 75 nmol/L). Results: When VD levels were compared against COVID-19 seropositivity rate, a U-shaped curve was identified in the total population. This trend repeated when split into subgroups of age, sex, ethnicity, BMI, and co-morbidity status. Significant difference was identified in the COVID-19 seropositivity rate between VD groups between multiple VD groups in the total population, males, females, BAME, BMI<30 (kg/m2), 0 and +1 comorbidities; the majority of which were differences when the severely VD deficient category were compared to the other group. A significantly larger proportion of those within the Black, Asian, minority ethnic (BAME) group (vs. white ethnicity) were severely vitamin D deficient (P <0.00001). A significantly higher proportion of the 0-comorbidity subgroup were vitamin D deficient in comparison to the 1+ comorbidity subgroup (P = 0.046). Conclusions: Further investigation of the U-shaped curves is required to determine whether high VD levels can have a detrimental effect on susceptibility to COVID-19 infection. Future randomised clinical trials of VD supplementation could potentially identify optimal VD levels. This would allow for targeted therapeutic treatment for those at-risk such as in the BAME group.

EEG Based Aptitude Detection System for Stress Regulation in Health Care Workers

Stress is a complex multifaceted concept that is the result of adverse or demanding circumstances. Workers, especially health care workers, suffer significantly from distress, burnout, and other physical illnesses such as hypertension and diabetes caused by stress. Numerous stress detection systems are realized but they only help in detecting the stress in early stages, and, for regularizing it, these systems employ other means. These systems lack any inherent feature for regularization of stress. In contributing toward this aim, a novel system “EEG-Based Aptitude Detection System” is proposed. This system will help in considering working aptitude of employees working in work places with an intention to help them in assigning proper job roles based on their working aptitude. Selection of right job role for workers not only helps in uplifting productivity but also helps in regulating stress level of employees caused by improper job role assignments and reduces fatigue. Being able to select right job role for workers will help them in providing productive working environment. This paper presents detail layered architecture, implementation details, and outcomes of the proposed novel system. Integration of this system in work places will help supervisors in utilizing the human resource more suitably and will help in regulating stress related issues with improvement in overall performance of entire office. In this work, different implementation architectures based on KNN, SVM, DT, NB, CNN, and LSTM are tested, where LSTM has provided better results and achieved accuracy up to 94% in correctly classifying an EEG signal. The rest of the details can be seen in Sections 3 and 5.

Informal learning behaviors and the role of workplace support: preliminary findings from an India-USA workforce

Purpose (mandatory) The purpose of this paper is to study engagement of employees in informal learning behaviors (ILBs) and to understand the role of workplace support (organizational support, supervisor support and job support) in facilitating such behaviors. Design/methodology/approach (mandatory) The study uses descriptive design with data collected through voluntary non-probability sampling method of 58 employees from India and the USA through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Findings (mandatory) Preliminary findings suggest that 81% of the employees are likely to engage in ILBs and 65.5% agreed to have received workplace support. Employees from India rate their workplace support as higher and are more likely to engage in ILBs than those from the USA. Originality/value (mandatory) This study contributes to workplace informal learning literature and highlights the need for more studies on workforce ILBs across multiple countries and job role variations.

Ensuring That Fatigue is Managed in Oil and Gas Operations

As in any shiftworking industry, fatigue poses a hazard to workers within the oil and gas industry, irrespective of job role and site location. In order to demonstrate adherence to health and safety regulations, operators can be expected to manage shift patterns and hours of work, such that they are appropriate and do not result in unnecessary levels of fatigue that may reduce the safety of the operation. Reliance on hours of work limitations (for example the European Working Time Directive) or industry normalised working patterns may no longer be considered sufficient to ensure that the risk posed by fatigue is appropriately managed. This paper presents how a scientific approach can be applied and adapted to suit the context and the populations being studied in order to answer specific operational questions and provide tailored fatigue risk mitigations. It describes a method by which site and job role fatigue levels can be assessed, in order for appropriate controls to be implemented. It will use case studies to illustrate how data collection methods are tailored to reflect specific operational environments. Data collection is particularly important in parts of the industry where common shift arrangements differ from those which have historically been studied. The method outlines an approach to rigorously assess contributors to fatigue and fatigue levels in an organisation following appropriate scientific methods. Both subjective and objective data are collected, using methods such as fatigue and sleepiness scales, sleep diaries and collection of objective sleep data using validated sleep tracking devices. The approach is specifically tailored to the population of interest – reflecting their shift pattern, and collecting further data on workload, task demand, and operational or location-specific factors (for example travel to site, onsite sleeping facilities, or sea sickness on floating platforms). The method also allows for inferences to be made about the impact of circadian misalignment and shift timing on sleep, performance and mood. The method presented in this paper has been used in field data collection in two very different environments. These studies are used as case studies to examine how the methodology can be tailored to ensure that the collected data are appropriate to the operation being studied, and lessons learned to improve the methods in the future.