Construction is a hazardous industry with a high number of injuries. Prior research found that many industry injuries can be prevented by implementing an effective safety plan if prepared and maintained by qualified safety personnel. However, there are no specific guidelines on how to select qualified construction safety personnel and what criteria should be used to select an individual for a safety position in the United States (US) construction industry. To fill this gap in knowledge, the study goal was to identify the desired qualifications of safety personnel in the US construction industry. To achieve the study goal, the Delphi technique was used as the main methodology for determining the desired qualifications for construction safety personnel. As a result, a panel of 15 subject-matter experts was selected, and 4 rounds of surveys were carried out. The findings of the study led to the identification of the desired qualifications for three construction safety positions (safety entry, safety professional, and safety manager). The present study contributes to the body of theoretical knowledge on construction safety and presents practical guidelines to assist industry stakeholders select qualified safety personnel for their projects. The selection of qualified safety personnel is expected to improve workplace safety performance and positively reflect on other project outcomes. Construction stakeholders should pay attention to three key aspects (namely, education, experience, and certification) when determining the qualifications for a safety leadership position and take into consideration the type of position intended to be filled. This study fills the gap in knowledge by identifying the desired qualifications and criteria on how to select safety personnel in the US construction industry.
The aim of this paper is to propose a reliable iterative method for resolving many types of Volterra - Fredholm Integro - Differential Equations of the second kind with initial conditions. The series solutions of the problems under consideration are obtained by means of the iterative method. Four various problems are resolved with high accuracy to make evident the enforcement of the iterative method on such type of integro differential equations. Results were compared with the exact solution which exhibits that this technique was compatible with the right solutions, simple, effective and easy for solving such problems. To evaluate the results in an iterative process the MATLAB is used as a math program for the calculations.
In this paper, a self-tuning adaptive neural controller strategy for unknown nonlinear system is presented. The system considered is described by an unknown NARMA-L2 model and a feedforward neural network is used to learn the model with two stages. The first stage is learned off-line with two configuration serial-parallel model & parallel model to ensure that model output is equal to actual output of the system & to find the jacobain of the system. Which appears to be of critical importance parameter as it is used for the feedback controller and the second stage is learned on-line to modify the weights of the model in order to control the variable parameters that will occur to the system. A back propagation neural network is appl
... Show MoreComputer systems and networks are increasingly used for many types of applications; as a result the security threats to computers and networks have also increased significantly. Traditionally, password user authentication is widely used to authenticate legitimate user, but this method has many loopholes such as password sharing, brute force attack, dictionary attack and more. The aim of this paper is to improve the password authentication method using Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNNs) with three types of distance include Euclidean Distance, Manhattan Distance and Euclidean Squared Distance and four features of keystroke dynamics including Dwell Time (DT), Flight Time (FT), mixture of (DT) and (FT), and finally Up-Up Time (UUT). The resul
... Show MoreIn this paper, first and second order sliding mode controllers are designed for a single link robotic arm actuated by two Pneumatic Artificial Muscles (PAMs). A new mathematical model for the arm has been developed based on the model of large scale pneumatic muscle actuator model. Uncertainty in parameters has been presented and tested for the two controllers. The simulation results of the second-order sliding mode controller proves to have a low tracking error and chattering effect as compared to the first order one. The verification has been done by using MATLAB and Simulink software.
Active vibration control is the main problem in different structure. Smart material like piezoelectric make a structure smart, adaptive and self-controlling so, they are effective in active vibration control. In this paper piezoelectric elements are used as sensors and actuators in flexible structures for sensing and actuating purposes, and to control the vibration of a cantilever beam by using sliding mode control. The sliding mode controller (SMC) is designed to attenuate the vibration induced by initial tip displacement which is equal to 15 mm. It is designed based on the balance realization reduction method where three states are selected for the reduced model from the 24th states that describe the c
... Show MoreThe research paper deals with the role of the place making in eco-tourism through a review of international experiences in the eco-tourism industry and its contribution to advancing the reality of tourism there, and attracting the largest number of tourists. The study is divided into five axes: the first is a study of related concepts, and the second is a study of global experiences, which included three countries: (South Bank (Gabriel's Wharf) - London, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and dealt with each of Happy Streets and Kendrick Mills, and then the Perak River tourist corridor - Malaysia). As for the third axis, it is concerned with analyzing these experiences to reach th
... Show MoreThe state and partial level densities were calculated using the corresponding formulas that are obtained in the frame work of the exciton model with equidistant spacing model (ESM) and non-ESM (NESM). Different corrections have been considered, which are obtained from other nuclear principles or models. These corrections are Pauli Exclusion Principle, surface effect, pairing effect, back shift due to shell effect and bound state effect . They are combined together in a composite formula with the intention to reach the final formula. One-component system at energies less than 100 MeV and mass number range (50-200) is assumed in the present work. It was found that Williams, plus spin formula is the most effective approach to the composite
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