scholarly journals Operational Requirements of Explosive Detection Canines: Expert Perspectives

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1976
Author(s):  
Brian D. Farr ◽  
Cynthia M. Otto ◽  
Julia E. Szymczak
Keyword(s):  
Personal Experience ◽  
Explosive Detection ◽  
Operational Environment ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Incomplete Knowledge ◽  
Institutional Knowledge ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
High Level ◽  
Explosive Devices

Explosive detection canines (EDC) play an important role in protecting people and property. The utilization of and research on EDCs is often based on personal experience or incomplete knowledge. EDC practitioners (handlers, trainers, and leaders) possess the institutional knowledge necessary to understand EDC operational requirements. This study utilized a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews of EDC experts (n = 17) from across the employment spectrum. The interviews elicited EDC expert perceptions of the performance of the EDC team and the operational requirements in the physical, climate, operational, and explosive odor environments. Analysis of the data revealed commonalities across all EDCs and utilization-specific differences. To be effective, the EDC team must function well on both ends of the leash, and the handler likely has the greatest impact on the EDC’s performance. Common requirements include expectations to perform at a high level in a variety of manmade and natural physical environments and under a range of climate conditions. EDCs must work through the visual, olfactory, and auditory challenges of the operational environment and the countermeasure efforts of those utilizing explosive devices. Utilization-specific differences like patrol or assault training and utilization add additional requirements for some EDCs. The results of this study can be used to inform EDC selection, training, assessment, and deployment, and further research into EDC performance.

Procurement Analytics: Enabling Data Architectures in the Age of Big Data

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Goul ◽  
T. S. Raghu ◽  
Ziru Li
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Data Space ◽  
Prescriptive Analytics ◽  
Data Architecture ◽  
The Future ◽  
High Level ◽  
Area Data

As procurement organizations increasingly move from a cost-and-efficiency emphasis to a profit-and-growth emphasis, flexible data architecture will become an integral part of a procurement analytics strategy. It is therefore imperative for procurement leaders to understand and address digitization trends in supply chains and to develop strategies to create robust data architecture and analytics strategies for the future. This chapter assesses and examines the ways companies can organize their procurement data architectures in the big data space to mitigate current limitations and to lay foundations for the discovery of new insights. It sets out to understand and define the levels of maturity in procurement organizations as they pertain to the capture, curation, exploitation, and management of procurement data. The chapter then develops a framework for articulating the value proposition of moving between maturity levels and examines what the future entails for companies with mature data architectures. In addition to surveying the practitioner and academic research literature on procurement data analytics, the chapter presents detailed and structured interviews with over fifteen procurement experts from companies around the globe. The chapter finds several important and useful strategies that have helped procurement organizations design strategic roadmaps for the development of robust data architectures. It then further identifies four archetype procurement area data architecture contexts. In addition, this chapter details exemplary high-level mature data architecture for each archetype and examines the critical assumptions underlying each one. Data architectures built for the future need a design approach that supports both descriptive and real-time, prescriptive analytics.

scholarly journals Adapting to context: Creative strategies of video streaming services in Nigeria

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110173
Author(s):  
Godwin Iretomiwa Simon
Keyword(s):  
Video On Demand ◽  
Business Environment ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Operational Environment ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Innovative Strategies ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Media ◽  
Streaming Services

This article examines the contextual challenges that characterize the video on demand (VOD) market in Africa. It provides critical analysis of the creative strategies employed by Nigeria-based streaming services to navigate the peculiar business environment on the continent. This research is on the background of the poor Internet infrastructure and economic divides in many African countries including Nigeria. Streaming services operating in these markets must understand a context where Internet access is complicated on the levels of availability and/or affordability, including significant lack of confidence in e-payment facilities. All these, together with epileptic power supply and poor standard of living, indicate that streaming services must innovate to capture subscribers within the continent. Despite the harsh operational environment, streaming services in Nigeria have continued to increase in number within the past 5 years. This is attributed to the transnational reach of the streaming services as they are patronized by Africans in diaspora across the globe, while they also enjoy popularity within African countries. This article specifically focuses on the innovative strategies employed by Nigerian streaming services to operate within their African markets in the context of their peculiar challenges. In so doing, it extends extant scholarship about Internet-distributed video using the African context. This article is situated within the Media Industry Studies framework and draws from semi-structured interviews with 7 streaming executives in Nigeria and 10 creative professionals in the Nigerian Video Film Industry (Nollywood). It also relies on desk research of press reports, industry publications, as well as the interfaces of streaming portals. This article underscores the necessity of contextualized research with the digital turn in video distribution. Through contextualized analysis of VOD market realities in a less studied terrain like Africa, it aligns with scholarly call to expand theories of Internet-distributed video to marginal contexts.

scholarly journals Ugandan stakeholder hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control: new directions for gene drive risk governance

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Hartley ◽  
Robert D. J. Smith ◽  
Adam Kokotovich ◽  
Chris Opesen ◽  
Tibebu Habtewold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Malaria Control ◽  
Stakeholder Involvement ◽  
Control Programme ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Risk Governance ◽  
Malaria Control Programme ◽  
Gene Drive ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
New Directions ◽  
High Level

Abstract Background The African Union’s High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies identified gene drive mosquitoes as a priority technology for malaria elimination. The first field trials are expected in 5–10 years in Uganda, Mali or Burkina Faso. In preparation, regional and international actors are developing risk governance guidelines which will delineate the framework for identifying and evaluating risks. Scientists and bioethicists have called for African stakeholder involvement in these developments, arguing the knowledge and perspectives of those people living in malaria-afflicted countries is currently missing. However, few African stakeholders have been involved to date, leaving a knowledge gap about the local social-cultural as well as ecological context in which gene drive mosquitoes will be tested and deployed. This study investigates and analyses Ugandan stakeholders’ hopes and concerns about gene drive mosquitoes for malaria control and explores the new directions needed for risk governance. Methods This qualitative study draws on 19 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Ugandan stakeholders in 2019. It explores their hopes for the technology and the risks they believed pertinent. Coding began at a workshop and continued through thematic analysis. Results Participants’ hopes and concerns for gene drive mosquitoes to address malaria fell into three themes: (1) ability of gene drive mosquitoes to prevent malaria infection; (2) impacts of gene drive testing and deployment; and, (3) governance. Stakeholder hopes fell almost exclusively into the first theme while concerns were spread across all three. The study demonstrates that local stakeholders are able and willing to contribute relevant and important knowledge to the development of risk frameworks. Conclusions International processes can provide high-level guidelines, but risk decision-making must be grounded in the local context if it is to be robust, meaningful and legitimate. Decisions about whether or not to release gene drive mosquitoes as part of a malaria control programme will need to consider the assessment of both the risks and the benefits of gene drive mosquitoes within a particular social, political, ecological, and technological context. Just as with risks, benefits—and importantly, the conditions that are necessary to realize them—must be identified and debated in Uganda and its neighbouring countries.

scholarly journals Socio-Educational Factors to Promote Educational Inclusion in Higher Education. A Question of Student Achievement

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Mª del Mar García-Vita ◽  
Marta Medina-García ◽  
Giselle Paola Polo Amashta ◽  
Lina Higueras-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Risk Factors ◽  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Sexual Diversity ◽  
Educational Perspective ◽  
High Level ◽  
Educational Inclusion ◽  
Diverse Groups

Psychosocial factors have a direct impact on the academic achievement of university students, especially when they belong to diverse human groups. This article shows the results of a project developed in a Colombian university with the aim of finding out the identity traits, situations of discrimination, and risk factors faced by students belonging to diverse groups. The research is qualitative, exploratory, and descriptive, approached from a social and educational perspective. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 students. The high level of identification with the group is visible in stufuigureents with affective-sexual diversity, gender identity and ethnic-cultural diversity, considered to be the most discriminated-against populations. Risks in the labor, educational, social, and family spheres are the most frequent.

Catchment-scale evaluation of pollution potential of urban snow at two residential catchments in southern Finland

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (10) ◽  
pp. 2164-2170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Sillanpää ◽  
Harri Koivusalo
Keyword(s):  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Hydrological Cycle ◽  
Cold Climate ◽  
Road Maintenance ◽  
Catchment Scale ◽  
Small Surface ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Snow Water ◽  
High Level ◽  
Mass Loads

Despite the crucial role of snow in the hydrological cycle in cold climate conditions, monitoring studies of urban snow quality often lack discussions about the relevance of snow in the catchment-scale runoff management. In this study, measurements of snow quality were conducted at two residential catchments in Espoo, Finland, simultaneously with continuous runoff measurements. The results of the snow quality were used to produce catchment-scale estimates of areal snow mass loads (SML). Based on the results, urbanization reduced areal snow water equivalent but increased pollutant accumulation in snow: SMLs in a medium-density residential catchment were two- to four-fold higher in comparison with a low-density residential catchment. The main sources of pollutants were related to vehicular traffic and road maintenance, but also pet excrement increased concentrations to a high level. Ploughed snow can contain 50% of the areal pollutant mass stored in snow despite its small surface area within a catchment.

Juggling on the line

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Evans
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Critical Factor ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Line Managers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
High Level

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the interplay between the role of front line managers (FLMs) and their contribution to the reported gap between intended and actual human resource management (HRM). Design/methodology/approach – The findings draw on case study research using 51 semi-structured interviews with managers across two UK retail organisations between 2012 and 2013. Findings – This paper argues that FLMs are key agents in people management and play a critical role in the gap between intended and actual employee relations (ER) and HRM. The research found that these managers held a high level of responsibility for people management, but experienced a lack of institutional support, monitoring or incentives to implement according to central policy. This provided an opportunity for them to modify or resist intended policy and the tensions inherent in their role were a critical factor in this manipulation of their people management responsibilities. Research limitations/implications – The data were collected from only one industry and two organisations so the conclusions need to be considered within these limitations. Practical implications – Efforts to address the gap between intended and actual ER/HRM within organisations will need to consider the role tensions of both front line and middle managers. Originality/value – This research provides a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between FLMs and the gap between intended and actual HRM within organisations. It addresses the issue of FLMs receiving less attention in the HRM-line management literature and the call to research their role in the translation of policy into practice.

Mixed embeddedness of Brazilian entrepreneurs in Toronto

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Pessoa de Queiroz Falcão ◽  
Michel Mott Machado ◽  
Eduardo Picanço Cruz ◽  
Caroline Shenaz Hossein
Keyword(s):  
Service Sector ◽  
The Body ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Immigrant Entrepreneurship ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Brazilian Government ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Multi Method Approach ◽  
High Level ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activities

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to investigate how social integration, immigrant networks and barriers to ventureing affect the entrepreneurial activities of Brazilians in Canada, indicating how mixed embeddedness takes place in that context.Design/methodology/approachData were collected in Toronto, through the application of a survey with 74 Brazilian entrepreneur respondents and 42 semi-structured interviews with selected subjects, thus representing a multi-method approach. The analysis included descriptive statistics from the survey data and a qualitative analysis of the trajectories and life stories of Brazilian immigrants.FindingsOur sample comprises respondents with a high level of education and proficiency in English, coming predominantly from the southeast of Brazil, white, aged from 30 to 49. The majority of businesses are small and related to the service sector. The article contributes to the literature by discussing the elements related to mixed embeddedness, including the need for cultural adaptation and for the creation of networks as a crucial element for business venturing.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focuses on entrepreneurs regardless of their businesses sector or formality/informality status. It could be used as an instrument to support Canadian public policies for welcoming Brazilians and for the Brazilian government to prevent the evasion of potential entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe article contributes to the body of knowledge of immigrant entrepreneurship in Canada and of Brazilian entrepreneurship overseas. The results suggest factors that may be relevant to the expansion of their business, such as social networking, cultural embeddedness and adaptation of the products/services to a wider range of target customers.

Comparative CSR decision-making in the Middle East: an exploratory study

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre El Haddad ◽  
Alexandre Anatolievich Bachkirov ◽  
Olga Grishina
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Nodal Model ◽  
Comparative Csr ◽  
High Level ◽  
Corporate Social

Purpose This study aims to explore the commonalities and differences of corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions among business leaders in Oman and Lebanon, two Middle Eastern countries forming a comparative dyad with a high level of cultural variance within the Arab cluster. Design/methodology/approach Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit qualitative data that were analyzed by means of multilevel analysis. Findings The findings provide empirical evidence that CSR is a powerful factor in managerial decision-making in the Middle East with the national cultures of Oman and Lebanon exerting partially differing effects on CSR decision-making. Practical implications The study enlightens practicing managers and policymakers in terms of the salience of multiple actors’ influence on CSR decision-making processes and the responses they may receive when developing and implementing CSR initiatives in the Middle East. Originality/value The study proposes a seven nodal model, which captures the flow of CSR decision-making in the research contexts.

Inuit vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada

Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Pearce ◽  
Barry Smit ◽  
Frank Duerden ◽  
James D. Ford ◽  
Annie Goose ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Northwest Territories ◽  
Adaptive Capacity ◽  
Adaptive Strategies ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Climate Change Research ◽  
Climate Conditions

ABSTRACTClimate change is already being experienced in the Arctic with implications for ecosystems and the communities that depend on them. This paper argues that an assessment of community vulnerability to climate change requires knowledge of past experience with climate conditions, responses to climatic variations, future climate change projections, and non-climate factors that influence people's susceptibility and adaptive capacity. The paper documents and describes exposure sensitivities to climate change experienced in the community of Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories and the adaptive strategies employed. It is based on collaborative research involving semi-structured interviews, secondary sources of information, and participant observations. In the context of subsistence hunting, changes in temperature, seasonal patterns (for example timing and nature of the spring melt), sea ice and wind dynamics, and weather variability have affected the health and availability of some species of wildlife important for subsistence and have exacerbated risks associated with hunting and travel. Inuit in Ulukhaktok are coping with these changes by taking extra precautions when travelling, shifting modes of transportation, travel routes and hunting areas to deal with changing trail conditions, switching species harvested, and supplementing their diet with store bought foods. Limited access to capital resources, changing levels of traditional knowledge and land skills, and substance abuse were identified as key constraints to adaptation. The research demonstrates the need to consider the perspectives and experiences of local people for climate change research to have practical relevance to Arctic communities such as for the development and promotion of adaptive strategies.

scholarly journals Sustainability Practice of a Multinational Oil Company in Nigeria: A Case Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Charles Afam Anosike
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
High Level ◽  
Oil Company

Environmental degradation and socioeconomic dilemma continue to affect agricultural productivity in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Several works of literature confirm the high level of pollution and contamination of land and water as a result of over 50 years of oil production in the region. The effects of environmental pollution continue to aggravate the hardship of the local people, which generates development friction, threaten oil operation, and mutually contrive relational efforts, by so invoking mistrust between oil companies and the host communities. Sustainability programs of oil companies often provide the channel to engage and promote community relations from which projects are conceived and executed. Despite sustainability efforts of oil companies, the region continues to experience oil spills and environmental degradation.Hence, the current research explores the sustainability efforts of a multinational oil company to establish whether the company’s leadership makes environmental considerations and to identify possible corrections that could be adopted to achieve sustainable value. For this purpose, the paper employed a single case study approach using open-ended interview sessions in collecting data. Research data were gathered from a sample of 20 experienced sustainability practitioners of the oil company, partnering nonprofit organizations, and community leaders through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Data were segmented and categorized. The data analysis process revealed several themes regarding the challenges and shortfalls of sustainability programs in the region. The evidence found suggests that implementing a transparent and inclusive sustainability management system is essential to enable a systems view in contemplating sustainability programs. In so doing, oil MNCs leaders could enable effective environmental consideration in their sustainability programs to help reinvigorate productive agriculture and ensure continuing oil operation.

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