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Vol. 03, No. 12 [December 2017]


Paper Title :: Influence of Gemba Kaizen's Principles on the Performance of Maternal Child Healthcare Projects; A Case of the Beyond Zero Campaign Project in Tana River County, Kenya
Author Name :: Mohamed Godana Shambaro || Mr. Johnbosco Kisimbii
Country :: Kenya
Page Number :: 01-13
The influence of Gemba Kaizen‟s principles on the performance of organisations in both the developing and the less developed countries is a matter that has gained popularity significantly in the 21st century. In fact, the concept of continuous improvement is influencing the performance of organisations greater than the technology spread concept does. The application of the Kaizen strategy and its principles has gained importance in the medical field too. This has been extended to the MCH programmes run by various hospitals across the globe. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of Gemba Kaizen‟s principles on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in Tana River County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were four, to assess the influence of team work on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in Tana River County, Kenya; to examine the influence of upper management commitment on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in Tana River County, Kenya; to establish the influence of total quality management on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in Tana River County, Kenya; to examine the influence of rewards and recognitions on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in Tana River County, Kenya. This study was guided by the theory of lean management and the theory of constraints. This study adopted a descriptive research design. The total target population was 407 respondents. The study applied simple random sampling to get a sample population of the study from the volunteers and then a population census was done to all the county and BZC permanent employees. The questionnaire was the main instrument of data collection that was used. Questionnaires were sorted and counterchecked for any mistakes or noncompliance. The best fit questionnaires for the study were then be coded and entries made into the SPSS software for analysis. The chi square test was done to test the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables (hypothesis).Out of the 407 targeted respondents 214 of them responded representing 52.58% response rate considered adequate to constitute a basis for valid conclusion. From the study‟s findings, it was concluded that team work concept, upper management commitment, rewards and recognition and TQM concept have significant influence on the performance of maternal child healthcare projects in the county. According to the findings, teamwork brings both the employees and other project implementers together in order to share ideas and knowledge that finally influences the performance of MCH projects. Upper management if it is committed it is able to get resources on time, give direction on activities to be performed, give the priorities in resources allocation and many more that finally influences the performance of projects. Rewards and recognitions perform a great duty of ensuring that every stakeholder of the projects is made to feel part of the projects and thus motivated to participate in each and every activity of implementation.
Key words: Gemba Kaizen strategy, team work, upper management, rewards and recognition, total quality management
[1]. AMREF. (2016). Report on the Midterm Evaluation of the Busia Child Survival Project (BCSP) Busia and Samia Districts, Kenya. https://www.oecd.org/countries/kenya/42278868.pdf
[2]. Ang W., Mohd F.and Nik H. (2015). The Mediating Effect of Kaizen between Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Performance.
[3]. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/160/1/012012
[4]. Akaligaung, John Akalpa. (2015). improving the quality of maternal and child health service delivery in resource-poor settings: case study of project fives alive! in Ghana. https://open.bu.edu/bitstream/handle/2144/16299/Akaligaung_bu_0017E_11398.pdf?sequence=3
[5]. Arindam Nag. (2015). 16 Factors that Lead to Poor Performance at the Workplace. http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/negative-performance-factors

Paper Title :: Identifying and Overcoming Challenges in Teaching and Learning College Level Statistics: Faculty Perspective
Author Name :: Abour H. Cherif || Jennifer D. Harris || Marylou Murphy
Country :: USA
Page Number :: 14-40
The purpose of this study is to determine what college statistics faculty perceive as the challenges of teaching and learning statistics at the college level and what are the best approaches to overcome these challenges.The study used a descriptive surveywith four related open-ended questions as a data collection instrument. The study population was comprised of undergraduate faculty from U.S. colleges and universities. The respondent population included 218 participants. After organizing the collected information, several specific challenges in teaching and learning statistics were identified as well as participants' perspectives on how to overcome those identified challenges. Four main areas were used as well as several categories within each main area were identified through the responses.Instructional pedagogy was identified as a key problem in teaching and learning statistics as well as a primary method to overcome these challenges.Other highlighted areas included student academic preparation and some focus on the content of these courses as well as the role of administrative support. Participants provided valuable tips, suggestions, and techniques to overcome the identified challenges for both, teaching and learning statistics. The study also shows a significant role for administrators and academic leaders in the process. Recommendations based on the findings are provided and discussed.
Keywords -Retention, student's success, academic readiness, student support, academic quality, teaching statistics
[1]. Graziano, A.M. Resarch Methods: A Process of Inquiry (8th). Boston: Pearson., 2012.
[2]. Barrow, R. and Milburn, G.A Critical Dictionary of Educational Concepts (2nd). New York: Teachers College Press, 1990.
[3]. O'Connell, R. J.STATS: What Do Students Need To Succeed? Northeastern Association of Business, Economic and Technology Proceedings (NABET). 39 Annual Meeting, Oct. 27-28, 2016, pp. 221-225. http://www.nabet.us/proceedings-archive/NABET-Proceedings-2016.pdf
[4]. Brakke, D. F., &Helpern, L. C. Improving success of students in introductory mathematics and statistics courses. Retrieved October 31, 2016 from: https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2014/summer/brakke, 2014.
[5]. Hawkins, A. Success and failure in statistical education –a UK perspective. http://iase-web.org/documents/papers/icots3/BOOK1/Plenary2.pdf, 1990.

Paper Title :: Mineral Admixtures for High Performance GGBS Concrete
Author Name :: Rohini I || B. Suganya Devi
Country :: India
Page Number :: 41-54
Cement is a binding material or substance that sets and harderns independently and can bind other materials together. The word cement traces to the romans who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete. GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag).It is obtained by quenching molten iron slag a product of iron and steel making. It is obtained from steel furnace and the waste liberated is called as GGBS. It has the character to bind materials together as in the case of cement in cement concrete. Therefore, it may be possible to replace cement by GGBS in concrete making such an approach will help to reduce the cement requirements in construction industry. Hence, a study was under taken to investigate the possibility of replacing cement by GGBS without having the compressive strength. Different proportions of replacement such as 30%, 50% and 70% of cement by GGBS have been attempted and the results are presented here. Chemical admixture by adding super plasticizer to increase the initial setting time by using the chemical B233, ACE30IT
Keywords: Concrète, GGBS, Admixture, Super Plasticizer, Compressive Strength,
[1]. De Belie N., Verselder H.J., De Blaere B., Van Nieuwenburg D. and Verschoore R. (1996). "Influence of the cement type on the resistance of concrete to feed acids". Cement andConcrete Research, 26 (11), 1717-1725.
[2]. De Belie N., Lenehan JJ, Braam C.R., Svennerstedt B, Richardson M. and Sonck B. (2000). "Durability of Building Materials and Components in the Agricultural Environment, Part III: Concrete Structures". Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, 76, 3-16. Ecocem.
[3]. Ganesh Babu, K. and Sree Rama Kumar, V. (2000)."Efficiency of GGBS in concrete".
[4]. Gao, J. M., Qian, C. X., Liu, B. and Wang, L. L. (2005). "ITZ microstructure of concrete ontaining GGBS".Cement and Concrete Research, 35 (7), 1299-1304.
[5]. Barnett S.J., Soutsos (2006), "Strength development of mortars containing ground granulated blast-furnace slag: Effect of curing temperature and determination of apparent activation energies". Cement and Concrete Research, 36 (3), 434-440.

Paper Title :: On Study of MHD flow of a Viscous Fluid on Nonlinear porous shrinking sheet
Author Name :: M. M. Allan
Country :: Egypt
Page Number :: 55-64
The present article aims to investigate the analytical and numerical solution of a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) flow of a viscous fluid towards a nonlinear porous shrinking sheet. The analytical solution of this problem is computed by The Adomian decomposition method (ADM). The ADM is provided an analytical solution in the form of an infinite power series. The governing equation of the MHD flow is simplified to boundary value problem (BVP) by similarity transformations and solved numerically using the Runge-Kutta method with the shooting technique. The Pertinent parameters appearing in the problem are discussed graphically and presented in tables. Convergent [m,m] Pad´e approximants are obtained and compared with the numerical results. It is found that the Pad´e approximants agree well with the numerical results. Comparison with homotopy analysis method (HAM) reveals that excellent agreement.
Keywords: MHD flow, ADM, HAM, shrinking sheet.
[1]. Adomian G. (1994) Solving frontier problems of physics: the decomposition method. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
[2]. Adomian G (1986) Nonlinear stochastic operator equations. New York: Academic Press.
[3]. Adomian G and Rach R. (1985) On the solution of algebraic equations by the decomposition method. Math Anal Appl., 66 105:141.
[4]. Abbasbandy S and Darvishi MT. (2005) A numerical solution of Burgers_ equation by modified Adomian method. Appl Math Comput., 163:1265–1272.
[5]. Abbasbandy S. (2003) Improving Newton–Raphson method for nonlinear equations by modified Adomian decomposition method. Appl Math Comput.145:887–893.

Paper Title :: Determining Cervical Cancer Possibility by Using Machine Learning Methods
Author Name :: Muhammed Fahri Unlersen || Kadir Sabanci || Muciz Özcan
Country :: Turkey
Page Number :: 65-71
World Health Organization (WHO) calls cancer as a generic term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body. Sometimes it could be the cause of loss of patients. Cancer mortality can be reduced if cases are detected and treated early. In this fact, it is important to determine someone has highly cancer risk by using a survey. In this study, a classification of patients due to their answers to a survey has been done to determine someone who has highly cervical cancer risk. The dataset has 858 records with 33 attributes and a biopsy result. In the dataset, number of the patients with cervical cancer diagnosis is 55 and the number of healthy patient is 803. This dataset has been divided into two groups randomly as train and test. The train group is 66% of the main dataset so there are 565 records in the train dataset. The rest of the dataset has been assigned as test dataset. The test dataset has 292 records. The classification has been done by using various methods like Multilayer Perceptron, BayesNet and k-Nearest Neighbor. Correctly classified instances and percentage, true positive and false positive classified instances rate for each class and confusion matrix have been presented for each method. And all of the results are discussed.
Keywords: BayesNet, Cervical Cancer, Classification, Early Diagnosis, k-NN, Multilayer Perceptron.
[1] Cancer Report. February 2017 [cited WHO World Health Organization 25.09.2017]; Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/.
[2] Fernandes, K., J.S. Cardoso, and J. Fernandes, Transfer Learning with Partial Observability Applied to Cervical Cancer Screening, in Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis: 8th Iberian Conference, IbPRIA 2017, Faro, Portugal, June 20-23, 2017, Proceedings, L.A. Alexandre, J. Salvador Sánchez, and J.M.F. Rodrigues, Editors. 2017, Springer International Publishing: Cham. p. 243-250.
[3] Sen, T. and S. Das, An Approach to Pancreatic Cancer Detection using Artificial Neural Network, in Proc. of the Second Intl. Conf. on Advances in Computer, Electronics and Electrical Engineering (CEEE2013). 2013. p. 56-60.
[4] Fernandes, K., J.S. Cardoso, and J. Fernandes, Transfer Learning with Partial Observability Applied to Cervical Cancer Screening, in Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis. 2017: Faro, Portugal. p. 61-69.
[5] Kalyankar, M.A. and N.R. Chopde, Cancer Detection: Survey. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 2013. 3(11): p. 4.

Paper Title :: Determinants of Employees Health and Safety Programs: A Case of Kipevu III Thermal Power Plant Mombasa, Kenya
Author Name :: Andrew Kibet Langat
Country :: Kenya
Page Number :: 72-97
The objective of the research were to determine the factors that influence occupational safety and health practices at the kipevu 3 and contribution of health and safety measures of working environment and also assesses the impact of work environment as on working condition and the effects of health care on workers. The other aim is to develop a theoretical framework to explain relationships involved, the importance of health and safety by both to the administration and the employees. It has also identified health and safety practices, current situation and preventive measures which should be taken to improve the situation The success by any organization depends largely on the constant enforcement and review of health and safety measures. The virtual aspect is to keep health and safety practices as a top priority. The research involved review of literature and occupational health and safety from various books which concluded that effective health and safety policy and programs are vital and legal requirements for any organization with more than five employees. The study involves various statistical analyses on both secondary and primary data obtained from kipevu 3 power plant. Qualitative data was obtained from about 67% of the staff using a self administered questionnaire. Interview and observation guide was also used during the study. The result of the study demonstrates that there is need for a provision of adequate HSE facilities and proper support by the management. However there is a correlation between company financial condition, Infrastructural facilities, health and safety trainings, leadership and commitment to health and safety programs at the plant. In addition it was found out that most of the employees are literate and hence could read and understand safety rules and regulations and most have undergone through health and safety trainings. It was also established that the company has invested on health and safety infrastructure. The research recommends that trainings on health and safety should be mandatory on recruitment and when the risks change. This can be done through seminars, workshops, meetings and on job trainings. The management should ensure provision of enough protective equipment, devices and clothing‟s to safeguard against hazards and ill health. The research makes suggestion that a risk assessment be carried out in all the power plants and a similar study be conducted in other power plants including hydro-power, wind and geothermal power plants.
[1]. Armstrong, (2006) A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice
[2]. Asplund et al., (1998), Stewart and Swaffield, (1999) Low-wage careers: Are there dead-end firms and dead-end jobs?
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[4]. Baxter, Sanderson, Venn, Blizzard, and Palmer (2014) Handbook of Employee Selection
[5]. Bennet R. (1997).Management 3rd Edition Financial Times.

Paper Title :: Economic Analysis of a System Having Duplicate Cold Standby Unit with Priority to Repair of Original Unit
Author Name :: Ajit Grewal || Indu Rohilla || Jitender Kumar
Country :: India
Page Number :: 98-103
Identical unit in the system play very important role to increase the reliability of the system. But in this situation, the cost of the system becomes very high to hold redundant unit. Idea that the system, having the minimum cost that duplicate unit has taken as cold standby with different failure rate as the failure rate of original unit. Also, the idea of priority to one discipline over to other discipline can improve the system performance. Keeping the idea of such system a model is developed having different failure rate with priority to repair of the original unit over repair of the duplicate unit. There is a single server, who play dual role to repair of original as well as duplicate unit whenever required. It is assume that the time to take repair activity follows negative exponential distribution whereas the distributions of unit are taken as arbitrary with different probability density functions. The expressions of various economic measures are analyzed in steady state using semi-Markov process and regenerative point technique. The graphs are sketched for arbitrary values of the parameters to delineate the behavior of some important performance measures to check the efficacy of the system model under such situations.
Key Words: Stochastic Analysis, Duplicate cold-standby, regenerative point, priority, steady state and semi-Markov process
[1]. Nakagawa T. and Osaki S. [1975]: Stochastic behavior of a two-unit priority standby redundant system with repair, Microelectronics Reliability 14(3), pp. 309-313.
[2]. Gopalan M.N. and Nagarwalla H.E. [1985]: Cost-benefit analysis of a one server two unit cold standby system with repair and age replacement, Microelectronics Reliability Vol. 25, pp. 977-990.
[3]. Singh S.K. and Sriniwas B.[1987]: Stochastic analysis of a two unit cold standby system with preparation time for repair, Microelectronics Reliability 27(1) pp. 55-60.
[4]. Bhardwaj R.K. and Singh Ravinder [2014]: Semi Markov approach for asymptotic performance analysis of a Standby system with server failure, International journal of computer Applications 98(3), pp. 9-14.
[5]. Bhardwaj R. K. and Singh Ravinder [2014]: Steady state behavior of a cold-standby system with server failure and arbitrary repair, replacement and treatment, International Journal of Applied Engineering Research 9(24), pp. 26563-26578.

Paper Title :: Kinematic and Dynamic Analysis of the 3-PRS Parallel Mechanism Based on Virtual Prototype
Author Name :: Guoqiang Chen || Zhuangzhuang Mao || Shanshan Dang || Jianli Kang || Ruidong Xu
Country :: China
Page Number :: 104-108
Aiming at the complicated problem of kinematic and dynamic analysis, the method based on the
virtual prototype technology is proposed to study the 3-PRS parallel mechanism. The 3D modeling software is
discussed to establish the virtual prototype. The virtual prototype modeling procedure is proposed and presented,
and then the virtual prototype of the 3-PRS parallel mechanism is established. Finally four examples are given
to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the prototype. The established prototype lays a foundation for
further study of the 3-PRS parallel mechanism.
Keywords: Parallel mechanism, Virtual prototype, Kinematic analysis, Dynamic analysis, 3D modeling
[1] Ming H, Wen Y T, and J S S, Manipulability analyses of the 3-DOF parallel machine tool, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 16-19, 2009, 1351-1354.
[2] HOU Y L, LI Z S, WANG Y and et al, Mechanics unloading analysis and experimentation of a new type of parallel biomimetic shoulder complex, Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 29(4) , 2016, 649-658.
[3] Vallés M, Cazalilla J, Ángel Valera, and et al, A 3-PRS parallel manipulator for ankle rehabilitation: towards a low-cost robotic rehabilitation, Robotica, 35,2015, 1-19.
[4] LU G D ,ZHANG A M, ZHOU J, and et al, Statics analysis and examination research of 3-RSS/S parallel mechanism, Journal of Machine Design30(3) , 2013,26-31.
[5] WANG M F, and CECCARELLI Marco, Topology search of 3-DOF translational parallel manipulators with three identical limbs for leg mechanisms, Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 28(4), 2015, 666-675.
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