A work-based research assessment of the impact of 'lean manufacturing' on health and safety education within an SME

Globalisation has had a major impact on the engineering industry as pacific Rim countries undercut manufacturing costs and provide a more cost-effective location for many businesses. Engineering in Nortehrn Ireland has mostly declined owing to increased competition from these countries. Engineering companies are now forced to streamline their production processes and employ cost-reducing practices in order to meet customer demands at reduced prices. This article aims to analyse the effects of one such streamlining endeavour which was first introduced after World War II in Japan- 'lean manufacturing' . 'Lean manufacturing' aims to reduce all wasteful activities within the production process in order to improve productivity, while reducing manufacturing costs. The work-based project under consideration was concerned with the impact 'lean manufacturing' may have on health and safety performance and education within an engineering company. The focus of the project was to determine through work-based research, and quantitative analysis, the employee perception on health and safety: has it changed (either positively or negatively), as a consequence of implementing 'lean manufacturing'.

Dinoflagellate cyst-based reconstructions of mid to late Holocene winter sea-surface temperature and productivity from an anoxic fjord in the NE Pacific Ocean

Published contemporary dinoflagellate distributional data from the NE Pacific margin and estuarine environments (n = 136) were re-analyzed using Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) and partial Canonical Correspondence Analysis (pCCA). These analyses illustrated the dominant controls of winter temperature and productivity on the distribution of dinoflagellate cysts in this region. Dinoflagellate cyst-based predictive models for winter temperature and productivity were developed from the contemporary distributional data using the modern analogue technique and applied to subfossil data from two mid to late Holocene (~5500 calendar years before present–present) cores; TUL99B03 and TUL99B11, collected from Effingham Inlet, a 15 km long anoxic fjord located on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island that directly opens to the Pacific Ocean through Barkley Sound. Sedimentation within these basins largely comprises annually deposited laminated couplets, each made up of a winter deposited terrigenous layer and spring to fall deposited diatomaceous layer. The Effingham Inlet dinoflagellate cyst record provides evidence of a mid-Holocene gradual decline in winter SST, ending with the initiation of neoglacial advances in the region by ~3500 cal BP. A reconstructed Late Holocene increase in winter SST was initiated by a weakening of the California Current, which would have resulted in a warmer central gyre and more El Niño-like conditions.

A new landscape of arts-based buildings and comparative cultural policies on the island of Ireland: the curse of Jocasta's necklace

Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture’s role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of arts-based buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta’s, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.

A new landscape of arts-based buildings and comparative cultural policies on the island of Ireland: the curse of Jocasta's necklace

Much current cultural policy research focuses on activity traditionally viewed as arts practice: visual arts, music, literature and dance. Architecture’s role in the discussion of cultural policy is, however, less certain and thus less frequently interrogated. The study presented here both addresses this dearth of in-depth research while also contributing to the interdisciplinary discussion of cultural policy in wider terms. In seeking to better understand how architectural culture is regulated and administered in a specific case study, it unpacks how the complicated relationships of nominal and explicit policies on both sides of the Irish/Northern Irish border contributed to the significant expansion of arts-based buildings 1995-2008. It contrasts political and cultural motivations behind these projects during a period of significant economic growth, investment and inward immigration. Data has been gathered from both official published policies as well as interviews with elite actors in the decision-making field and architects who produced the buildings of interest in both countries. With the sizeable number of arts-based buildings now completed in both Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, one must wonder if this necklace of buildings is, like Jocasta’s, a thing of both beauty and redolent with a potential future curse. It is the goal of this project to contribute to the larger applied and critical discussion of these issues and to engage with future policy design, administration and, certainly, evaluation.

Corruption and subsidiary profitability: US MNC subsidiaries in the Asia Pacific region

Would multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries be more profitable in host countries where corruption is less severe? Would MNC subsidiaries be more profitable in less corrupt countries if they focus on local sales? This paper examines the impact of the level of corruption on the profitability of US MNCs in the Asia Pacific region. Using foreign direct investment (FDI) data archived by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis and corruption data reported by the World Bank, we find that MNC subsidiaries located in countries with a lower level of corruption are more profitable. In addition, MNC subsidiaries with a greater focus on local sales are more profitable when the corruption level is low. This study contributes to the literature by showing that when local sales are important to MNC subsidiaries, a lower level of corruption by host countries positively affects the profitability of the MNC subsidiaries.

Vegetation changes and human settlement of Easter Island during the last millennia: a multiproxy study of the Lake Raraku sediments

Earlier palynological studies of lake sediments from Easter Island suggest that the island underwent a recent and abrupt replacement of palm-dominated forests by grasslands, interpreted as a deforestation by indigenous people. However, the available evidence is inconclusive due to the existence of extended hiatuses and ambiguous chronological frameworks in most of the sedimentary sequences studied. This has given rise to an ongoing debate about the timing and causes of the assumed ecological degradation and cultural breakdown. Our multiproxy study of a core recovered from Lake Raraku highlights the vegetation dynamics and environmental shifts in the catchment and its surroundings during the late Holocene. The sequence contains shorter hiatuses than in previously recovered cores and provides a more continuous history of environmental changes. The results show a long, gradual and stepped landscape shift from palm-dominated forests to grasslands. This change started c. 450 BC and lasted about two thousand years. The presence of Verbena litoralis, a common weed, which is associated with human activities in the pollen record, the significant correlation between shifts in charcoal influx, and the dominant pollen types suggest human disturbance of the vegetation. Therefore, human settlement on the island occurred c. 450 BC, some 1500 years earlier than is assumed. Climate variability also exerted a major influence on environmental changes. Two sedimentary gaps in the record are interpreted as periods of droughts that could have prevented peat growth and favoured its erosion during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age, respectively. At c. AD 1200, the water table rose and the former Raraku mire turned into a shallow lake, suggesting higher precipitation/evaporation rates coeval with a cooler and wetter Pan-Pacific AD 1300 event. Pollen and diatom records show large vegetation changes due to human activities c. AD 1200. Other recent vegetation changes also due to human activities entail the introduction of taxa (e.g. Psidium guajava, Eucalyptus sp.) and the disappearance of indigenous plants such as Sophora toromiro during the two last centuries. Although the evidence is not conclusive, the American origin of V. litoralis re-opens the debate about the possible role of Amerindians in the human colonisation of Easter Island.

Influence of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Niño-Southern Oscillation and solar forcing on climate and primary productivity changes in the northeast Pacific

Evidence of 11-year Schwabe solar sunspot cycles, El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) were detected in an annual record of diatomaceous laminated sediments from anoxic Effingham Inlet, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Radiometric dating and counting of annual varves dates the sediments from AD 1947-1993. Intact sediment slabs were X-rayed for sediment structure (lamina thickness and composition based on gray-scale), and subsamples were examined for diatom abundances and for grain size. Wavelet analysis reveals the presence of ~2-3, ~4.5, ~7 and ~9-12-year cycles in the diatom record and an w11e13 year record in the sedimentary varve thickness record. These cycle lengths suggest that both ENSO and the sunspot cycle had an influence on primary productivity and sedimentation patterns. Sediment grain size could not be correlated to the sunspot cycle although a peak in the grain size data centered around the mid-1970s may be related to the 1976-1977 Pacific climate shift, which occurred when the PDO index shifted from negative (cool conditions) to positive (warm conditions). Additional evidence of the PDO regime shift is found in wavelet and cross-wavelet results for Skeletonema costatum, a weakly silicified variant of S. costatum, annual precipitation and April to June precipitation. Higher spring (April/May) values of the North Pacific High pressure index during sunspot minima suggest that during this time, increased cloud cover and concomitant suppression of the Aleutian Low (AL) pressure system led to strengthened coastal upwelling and enhanced diatom production earlier in the year. These results suggest that the 11-year solar cycle, amplified by cloud cover and upwelling changes, as well as ENSO, exert significant influence on marine primary productivity in the northeast Pacific. The expression of these cyclic phenomena in the sedimentary record were in turn modulated by the phase of PDO, as indicated by the change in period of ENSO and suppression of the solar signal in the record after the 1976-1977 regime shift. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.

Phylogeny and ancient DNA of Sus provides insights into neolithic expansion in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania

Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the associated Lapita culture remain contentious, and numerous disparate models of dispersal (based primarily on linguistic, genetic, and archeological data) have been proposed. Here, through the use of mtDNA from 781 modern and ancient Sus specimens, we provide evidence for an early human-mediated translocation of the Sulawesi warty pig (Sus celebensis) to Flores and Timor and two later separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig (Sus scrofa) through Island Southeast Asia into Oceania. Of the later dispersal routes, one is unequivocally associated with the Neolithic (Lapita) and later Polynesian migrations and links modern and archeological Javan, Sumatran, Wallacean, and Oceanic pigs with mainland Southeast Asian S. scrofa. Archeological and genetic evidence shows these pigs were certainly introduced to islands east of the Wallace Line, including New Guinea, and that so-called "wild" pigs within this region are most likely feral descendants of domestic pigs introduced by early agriculturalists. The other later pig dispersal links mainland East Asian pigs to western Micronesia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. These results provide important data with which to test current models for human dispersal in the region. © 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

The inclusion and juridification of victims on the Island of Ireland

Concern for crime victims has been a growing political issue in improving the legitimacy and success of the criminal justice system through the rhetoric of rights. Since the 1970s there have been numerous reforms and policy documents produced to enhance victims’ satisfaction in the criminal justice system. Both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have seen a sea-change in more recent years from a focus on services for victims to a greater emphasis on procedural rights. The purpose of this chapter is to chart these reforms against the backdrop of wider political and regional changes emanating from the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, and to critically examine whether the position of crime victims has actually ameliorated.

While separated into two legal jurisdictions, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as common law countries have both grappled with similar challenges in improving crime victim satisfaction in adversarial criminal proceedings. This chapter begins by discussing the historical and theoretical concern for crime victims in the criminal justice system, and how this has changed in recent years. The rest of the chapter is split into two parts focusing on the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Both parts examine the provisions of services to victims, and the move towards more procedural rights for victims in terms of information, participation, protection and compensation. The chapter concludes by finding that despite being different legal jurisdictions, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have introduced many similar reforms for crime victims in recent years.

The role of societal norms in portion size related behaviour in Denmark and on the Island of Ireland

Purpose:
Social norms influence eating behavior, but little is known about their role in portion size-related behavior. This study
explored the role of social eating norms in Denmark (DK) and the Island of Ireland (IOI) in relation to portion size-related
behavior.

Methods:
In a survey DK (n=1063) and IOI (n=1012) respondents rated social eating norms (11 items) and portion size-related behavior
(3 items) on a 7-point scale (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree). The 3 items relate to: 1) anticipating how
much will be eaten at the beginning of a meal, 2) clearing the plate, and 3) clearing the plate even when full. Sociodemographics
and eating attitudes (e.g. cognitive restraint) were measured as background variables

Results:
Two social eating factors were identified: The ‘limit intake’ norm (6 items) and the ‘plate cleaning’ norm (3 items). The
DK participants reported stronger ‘limit intake’ norms and weaker ‘plate cleaning’ norms than IOI. In both countries
females reported stronger ‘limit intake’ norms while males reported stronger ‘plate cleaning’ norms. In DK, age was
positively correlated with both social eating norm factors. The ‘limit intake’ norm had stronger association with anticipating
how much will be eaten at the beginning of a meal, but the ‘plate cleaning’ norm had stronger association with
clearing the plate. Only the ‘plate cleaning’ norm was associated with clearing the plate even when full.

Conclusions:
The social eating norms vary significantly between countries and genders. The ‘limit intake’ and ‘plate cleaning’ norms
play a role in consumers’ reported portion size-related behavior.

Tropical cyclone perceptions, impacts and adaptation in the Southwest Pacific: an urban perspective from Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga

The destruction caused by tropical cyclone (TC) Pam in March 2015 is considered one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Vanuatu. It has highlighted the need for a better understanding of TC impacts and adaptation in the Southwest Pacific (SWP) region. Therefore, the key aims of this study are to (i) understand local perceptions of TC activity, (ii) investigate impacts of TC activity and (iii) uncover adaptation strategies used to offset the impacts of TCs. To address these aims, a survey (with 130 participants from urban areas) was conducted across three SWP small island states (SISs): Fiji, Vanuatu and Tonga (FVT). It was found that respondents generally had a high level of risk perception and awareness of TCs and the associated physical impacts, but lacked an understanding of the underlying weather conditions. Responses highlighted that current methods of adaptation generally occur at the local level, immediately prior to a TC event (preparation of property, gathering of food, finding a safe place to shelter). However higher level adaptation measures (such as the modification to building structures) may reduce vulnerability further. Finally, we discuss the potential
of utilising weather-related traditional knowledge and nontraditional knowledge of empirical and climate-model-based weather forecasts to improve TC outlooks, which would ultimately reduce vulnerability and increase adaptive capacity. Importantly, lessons learned from this study may result in the modification and/or development of existing adaptation strategies.