Space Syntax-able Attributions for Safety Consideration of Heritage Area

Understanding crime has been in focus for a few decades. Significant research has begun to understand the relationship between spatial configuration and crime occurrence, which related back to human behaviour. In recent year, space syntax has been used as a method to analyse space and its spatial properties. Urban design researchers have employed the space syntax technique to analyse the geographic distribution of crime due to spatial and socio-demographic factors that could influence crime patterns. This paper describes how space syntax could be used to assess crime possibility in heritage areas, and the result supports the hypothesis. Keywords: Urban planning, Crime prevention theory, Space syntax, Spatial configuration eISSN: 2398-4287© 2021. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v6iSI4.2903

Health and Safety Consideration in the Procurement of Public Construction Projects in Ghana

This study explored the extent to which health and safety (H&S) are considered in the procurement of public sector projects in Ghana. This is based on the background that procurement decisions have implications for project H&S management. The enormous size of public procurement projects offers opportunities for public clients to influence the behaviour of the construction market including the promotion of H&S through procurement. To date, no study has fully assessed the extent of H&S considerations in procurement decisions for public sector construction projects in Ghana. To fill this gap, this research has provided an evidence-based assessment of H&S considerations in the various stages of the procurement process for public sector projects in Ghana. Through a questionnaire survey, data were collected from construction industry professionals in Ghana. The data were subjected to statistical analysis to evaluate the extent of H&S considerations. The findings suggest that H&S is given low priority in the procurement of public projects, because clear project objectives relating to H&S are not set, and adequate consideration is not given to H&S at the various procurement stages. Based on the findings, this research has made recommendations to promote H&S in public procurement in Ghana.

Use of Disproportionality Analysis to Identify Previously Unknown Drug-Associated Causes of Cardiac Arrhythmias Using the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) Database

Introduction: Drug-induced QTc-prolongation is a well-known adverse drug reaction (ADR), however there is limited knowledge of other drug-induced arrhythmias. Purpose: The objective of this study is to determine the drugs reported to be associated with arrhythmias other than QTc-prolongation using the FAERS database, possibly identifying potential drug causes that have not been reported previously. Methods: FAERS reports from 2004 quarter 1 through 2019 quarter 1 were combined to create a dataset of approximately 11.6 million reports. Search terms for arrhythmias of interest were selected from the Standardized MedDRA Queries (SMQ) Version 12.0. Frequency of the cardiac arrhythmias were determined for atrial fibrillation, atrioventricular block, bradyarrhythmia, bundle branch block, supraventricular tachycardia, and ventricular fibrillation and linked to the reported causal medications. Reports were further categorized by prior evidence associations using package inserts and established drug databases. A reporting odds ratio (ROR) and confidence interval (CI) were calculated for the ADRs for each drug and each of the 6 cardiac arrhythmias. Results: Of the 11.6 million reports in the FAERS database, 68,989 were specific to cardiac arrhythmias of interest. There were 61 identified medication-reported arrhythmia pairs for the 6 arrhythmia groups with 33 found to have an unknown reported association. Rosiglitazone was the most frequently medication reported across all arrhythmias [ROR 6.02 (CI: 5.82-6.22)]. Other medications with significant findings included: rofecoxib, digoxin, alendronate, lenalidomide, dronedarone, zoledronic acid, adalimumab, dabigatran, and interferon beta-1b. Conclusion: Upon retrospective analysis of the FAERS database, the majority of drug-associated arrhythmias reported were unknown suggesting new potential drug causes. Cardiac arrhythmias other than QTc prolongation are a new area of focus for pharmacovigilance and medication safety. Consideration of future studies should be given to using the FAERS database as a timely pharmacovigilance tool to identify unknown adverse events of medications.

The Multi Split Ventilator System: Design and Function of a Regulated, Shared Ventilator System

The objective of this paper is to describe the design and function of the Multi Split Ventilator system (MSVS); an airflow apparatus that enables physicians to provide individualized, isolated ventilation to up to four patients using a single ventilator. Method: The study design is laboratory assessment of the ability of the MSVS to decouple the pressures and resulting tidal volumes between patient limbs in response to adverse extubation (disconnection) or endotracheal tube occlusion of one of the patients in the system. We compare the airflow decoupling of the MSVS against an existing unregulated split ventilator system (USVS) design over eight prototypical patient pairs. Simulated patient prototypes of varying size, minute ventilation requirement, and PEEP requirement were employed. Result: Respiratory support was developed for varying simulated patient pairs using the MSVS and a USVS. The results demonstrate that patients supported with the MSVS showed significantly smaller changes to tidal volume and PEEP after extubation events, and tidal volume after occlusion events. Conclusion: It was found that the MSVS as a regulated, shared ventilator system effectively buffered simulated patients from clinical changes occurring to another patient connected to the split ventilator. This decoupling ability resulted in significantly smaller changes in delivered support when compared to existing USVS designs, which is an important patient safety consideration if deciding to support multiple patients with a single ventilator.