Hepatitis C in the workplace : a survey of women’s occupational health and safety in the beauty therapy industry

Objective: To examine current knowledge and practice of occupational health and safety (OH&S) regarding hepatitis C in beauty therapy practice. Methods: A questionnaire was sent to all beauty therapy practices identified through the Telstra Yellow Pages and distributed via beauty therapy product agencies. Results: 119 questionnaires were completed by employers and employees in 99 beauty therapy practices in metropolitan Adelaide. Beauty therapists reported carrying out many practices that had exposed them to blood in the past. More than 80% of the procedures carried out by beauty therapists in the previous week were reported to have led to exposure to blood. 39.5% of respondents had not received information about OH&S practices related to blood spills and 77.5% of respondents had received no OH&S information about hepatitis C. Knowledge of hepatitis C and its transmission was poor, with 62% of respondents incorrectly identifying the prevalence of hepatitis C and respondents incorrectly identifying sneezing (28%), kissing (46%) and sharing coffee cups (42%) as a modes of transmission. 80% of beauty therapy practices had no OH&S representative. Conclusion: Beauty therapy practice can expose both operator and client to blood and is therefore a potential site for the transmission of blood-borne diseases including hepatitis C. OH&S information is inadequate in this industry and knowledge of hepatitis C is poor.

Leveraging power of learning capability upon manufacturing operations

Learning capability (LC) is a special dynamic capability that a firm purposefully builds to develop a cognitive focus, so as to enable the configuration and improvement of other capabilities (both dynamic and operational) to create and respond to market changes. Empirical evidence regarding the essential role of LC in leveraging operational manufacturing capabilities is, however, limited in the literature. This study takes a routine-based approach to understand capability, and focuses on demonstrating leveraging power of LC upon two essential operational capabilities within the manufacturing context, i.e., operational new product development capability (ONPDC), and operational supplier integration capability (OSIC). A mixed-methods research framework was used, which combines sources of evidence derived from a survey study and a multiple case study. This study identified high-level routines of LC that can be designed and controlled by managers and practitioners, to reconfigure underlying routines of ONPDC and OSIC to achieve superior performance in a turbulent environment. Hence, the study advances the notion of knowledge-based dynamic capabilities, such as LC, as routine bundles. It also provides an impetus for managing manufacturing operations from a capability-based perspective in the fast changing knowledge era.

IMO mandatory energy efficiency measures for international shipping : the first mandatory global greenhouse gas reduction instrument for an international industry

Bunker fuels used in the aviation and maritime sectors are responsible for nearly 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.1 According to a scientific survey: ‘[s]hipping is estimated to have emitted 1,046 million tonnes of CO2 in 2007, which corresponds to 3.3% of the global emissions during 2007. International shipping is estimated to have emitted 870 million tonnes, or about 2.7% of the global emissions of CO2 in 2007’. The study also predicted that ‘by 2050, in the absence of policies, ship emissions may grow by 150% to 250% (compared to the emissions in 2007) as a result of the growth in shipping.’

Environmental pollution from shipbreaking industry : international law and national legal response

The international legal regime on shipbreaking is in its formative years. At the international level, the shipbreaking industry is partially governed by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal. However, how far this convention will be applicable for all aspects of transboundary movement of end-of-life ships is still, at least in the view of some scholars, a debatable issue. Against this backdrop, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has adopted a new, legally binding convention for shipbreaking. There is a rising voice from the developing countries that the convention is likely to impose more obligations on recycling facilities in the developing countries than on shipowners from rich nations. This may be identified as a clear derogation from the globally recognized international environmental law principle of common but differentiated treatment. This article will examine in detail major international conventions regulating transboundary movement and environmentally sound disposal of obsolete ships, as well as the corresponding laws of Bangladesh for implementing these conventions in the domestic arena. Moreover this article will examine in detail the recently adopted IMO Ship Recycling Convention.

Collaborative design learning for traditional crafts industry

Traditional craft industries need assistance with being transformed into creative industries; as such a transformation will support them to face the future competitive global market. Assistance such as advisory programs should serve long-term benefit for crafts industries as well as optimize self-help potential. Advisory programs using participatory methods will enable craftspeople and stakeholders to reveal resources and potencies, such as socio-cultural value, tradition and other kind of heritages, to generate new innovative ideas of craft design in a sustainable way.

Integrating agency and resource dependence theory : firm profitability, industry regulation, and board task performance

Boards of directors are key governancemechanisms in organizations and fulfill twomain tasks:monitoringmanagers and firm performance, and providing advice and access to resources. In spite of a wealth of researchmuch remains unknown about how boards attend to the two tasks. This study investigates whether organizational (firm profitability) and environmental factors (industry regulation) affect board task performance. The data combine CEOs' responses to a questionnaire, and archival data from a sample of large Italian firms. Findings show that past firm performance is negatively associatedwith board monitoring and advice tasks; greater industry regulation enhances perceived board task performance; board monitoring and advice tasks tend to reinforce each other, despite their theoretical and practical distinction.

Regulating the coal industry : striking a balance between commercial and public interests - a Queensland case study

The coal industry in Queensland operates in a very complex regulatory environment with a matrix of Federal and State laws covering the environment, health and safety, taxation and royalties, tenure, and development approvals. The Queensland Government in 2012 recognised the validity of certain industry concerns and passed two Acts being the Environmental Protection (Greentape Reduction) Amendment Act 2012 (the Greentape Act) and the Mines Legislation (Streamlining) Amendment Act 2012 (the Streamlining Act). Other changes are foreshadowed in relation to overlapping tenure and in the development of common resources legislation. Accordingly there is a great level of activity and change that has occurred or which is on the horizon. This article focuses upon these regulatory changes and foreshadows other areas requiring consideration. It commences with a consideration of the changes that have already occurred, examines those regulatory amendments that are on the drawing board and concludes with suggestions as to further interventions and amendments that have the potential to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the legislative framework in which coal mining is conducted.

Integrating real time positioning systems to improve blind lifting and loading crane operations

Mobile/tower cranes are the most essential forms of construction plant in use in the construction industry but are also the subject of several safety issues. Of these, blind lifting has been found to be one of the most hazardous of crane operations. To improve the situation, a real-time monitoring system that integrates the use of a Global Positioning System (GPS) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is developed. This system aims to identify unauthorized work or entrance of personnel within a pre-defined risk zone by obtaining positioning data of both site workers and the crane. The system alerts to the presence of unauthorized workers within a risk zone——currently defined as 3m from the crane. When this happens, the system suspends the power of the crane and a warning signal is generated to the safety management team. In this way the system assists the safety management team to manage the safety of hundreds of workers simultaneously. An onsite trial with debriefing interviews is presented to illustrate and validate the system in use.

Analysing the Sri Lankan conflict using Michael Mann's four-dimensional model of social power

This thesis provides an overview of the Sri Lankan civil war with a view to identifying some of the factors that contributed to the dispute between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It adopts a multi-causal explanation of the conflict by reference to the theories of social power developed by Michael Mann. The conflict has been variously described as an ethnic or political conflict, or has been characterised as a determined by a number of interacting factors (including colonialism, ethnicity, religion, economy, politics and globalisation). Mann’s four-dimensional model of social power is deployed to analyse the causal relationships, together with their inter-connections, which clarify the origins of the dispute. It argues that Mann’s theoretical framework helps to highlight some of the interconnected elements that contributed to the conflict.

"SporTV" : the legacies and power of television

This chapter begins from the premise that, to date, television remains the dominant communications technology in the digital media sport environment. It argues that sports-related programming is often overlooked in favour of event coverage in the study of sports television. Analysis focuses on three areas - platform interaction, technological innovation, and content ecologies - and describes technological innovations arising from television coverage of sports, with a particular focus on online video, audience measurement, and 3D production and viewing.

Women's participation in the Australian digital content industry

The research investigated women’s participation in the Australian Digital Content Industry, which encompasses both multimedia and games production. The Digital Content Industry is an area of growing economic and social significance, both in Australia and internationally. Women are under-represented in core Digital Content Industry work but there has been little theoretical or empirical investigation of the underlying issues. This research identified a range of influences on women’s participation and provides a better understanding of this complex social phenomenon by proposing that influences should be understood from the perspective of agent-driven mechanisms. The key contribution is a new theory - the Acts of Agency Theory - which was used to discuss the phenomenon and issues underpinning women’s participation and to recommend strategies that should foster greater participation of women in the Digital Content Industry.

Construct Redundancy in Process Modeling Grammars: Improving the Explanatory Power of Ontological Analysis

Conceptual modelling supports developers and users of information systems in areas of documentation, analysis or system redesign. The ongoing interest in the modelling of business processes has led to a variety of different grammars, raising the question of the quality of these grammars for modelling. An established way of evaluating the quality of a modelling grammar is by means of an ontological analysis, which can determine the extent to which grammars contain construct deficit, overload, excess or redundancy. While several studies have shown the relevance of most of these criteria, predictions about construct redundancy have yielded inconsistent results in the past, with some studies suggesting that redundancy may even be beneficial for modelling in practice. In this paper we seek to contribute to clarifying the concept of construct redundancy by introducing a revision to the ontological analysis method. Based on the concept of inheritance we propose an approach that distinguishes between specialized and distinct construct redundancy. We demonstrate the potential explanatory power of the revised method by reviewing and clarifying previous results found in the literature.

Knowledge is not power, but it’s a start : what young people know about their rights and obligations in employment

Scholarship addressing the employment concerns of school age workers has identified a number of areas of vulnerability. Prominent among these is that young workers have insufficient knowledge of their rights in employment, yet the extent of this knowledge has not previously been quantified. This study explores areas of strength and deficit in awareness of employment rights and obligations in a sample of 892 young people in Australian high schools. The findings demonstrate that, despite part-time work being a majority experience for school students, young Australians know relatively little of their employment rights. The conclusions underscore the need for education strategies that inform young people prior to and in the very early stages of their working lives.

Applying maintenance strategies from the space and satellite sector to the upstream oil and gas industry : a research agenda

Practitioners from both the upstream oil and gas industry and the space and satellite sector have repeatedly noted several striking similarities between the two industries over the years, which have in turn resulted in many direct comparisons in the media and industry press. The two sectors have previously worked together and shared ideas in ways that have yielded some important breakthroughs, but relatively little sharing or cross-pollination has occurred in the area of asset maintenance. This is somewhat surprising in light of the fact that here, too, the sectors have much in common. This paper accordingly puts forward the viewpoint that the upstream oil and gas industry could potentially make significant improvements in asset maintenance—specifically, with regard to offshore platforms and remote pipelines—by selectively applying some aspects of the maintenance strategies and philosophies that have been learned in the space and satellite sector. The paper then offers a research agenda toward accelerating the rate of learning and sharing between the two industries in this domain, and concludes with policy recommendations that could facilitate this kind of cross-industry learning.