The Application of Numerical Methods and IT Tools to Environment and Safety Engineering

The research community of environmental economics has had a growing interest for the exploration of artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems to provide enriched efficiencies and strengthened human knacks in daily live maneuvers, business stratagems, and society evolution. In this investigation, AI-based intelligent backpropagation networks of Bayesian regularization (IBNs-BR) were exploited for the numerical treatment of mathematical models representing environmental economic systems (EESs). The governing relations of EESs were presented in the form of differential models representing their fundamental compartments or indicators for economic and environmental parameters. The reference datasets of EESs were assembled using the Adams numerical solver for different EES scenarios and were used as targets of IBNs-BR to find the approximate solutions. Comparative studies based on convergence curves on the mean square error (MSE) and absolute deviation from the reference results were used to verify the correctness of IBNs-BR for solving EESs, i.e., MSE of around 10⁻⁹ to 10⁻¹⁰ and absolute error close to 10⁻⁵ to 10⁻⁷. The endorsement of results was further validated through performance evaluation by means of error histogram analysis, the regression index, and the mean squared deviation-based figure of merit for each EES scenario. Full article

Nowadays, taking into account the multidimensionality of the external environment and necessity of the sustainable development of human resources, organizations are obliged to take more care of the psychological resources of their employees, e.g., positive orientation, ego resilience, and emotional stability. Such resources affect how we cope with stress and a sense of threat. The authors of this paper focus on people employed in the aviation sector, who work in the hard-to-cope environment of full automation, demanding working conditions and numerous stressors. The presented study fills a gap in the research on the psychological characteristics of the aviation sector. Moreover, a sense of stress/threat is described in the context of the high specificity of employees representing the 4.0 sector. Therefore, it provides additional insights into the psychological functioning of the employees in the aviation sector. The results show that both positive orientation and ego resilience might be seen as protective factors against a sense of threat and stress, while a type D personality is a risk factor of a higher level of those psychological states. The novelty of the presented research concerns a better understanding of the sense of stress/threat experienced by the employees in this sector, as well as verifying the relationships between psychological variables described in the literature as personal resources. Full article

A commonly used strategy in production enterprises is the idea of sustainable development. For an idea to be effectively implemented, it is essential to have competent and well-informed staff. This condition is necessary, but not sufficient. Still, the introduction of changes in the enterprise—including rational management of resources, as well as fair distribution of benefits and social development—requires acceptance on the part of employees. The implementation of this idea entails the need to introduce organizational changes, new technologies and innovative products. Currently, this direction in development is gradually beginning to determine the competitiveness of an enterprise. The present article discusses the results of a questionnaire survey in one production enterprise; the survey aimed at assessing work conditions. The research results were to show how the current changes related to the idea of sustainable development being implemented in this enterprise are assessed by the employees in the production sector. The obtained results are also to serve as a basis for developing a strategy for introducing further changes in this enterprise. The quantitative research included an evaluation of 24 research variables, which were divided into nine thematic groups relevant to work conditions in the enterprise. The research covered three basic groups of factors: work characteristics, human resource management policies and the social context of work. A global assessment of the enterprise’s performance was also undertaken. The research therefore focused on the practical aspects of the activity carried out by the enterprise. The results obtained should provide a basis for assessing the potential for introducing innovative solutions in line with the idea of sustainable development as well as improvements in human resource management. This basis is also particularly important for implementing such solutions in the enterprise which are in line with changes related to the concept of Industry 4.0. Full article

The climate of the workplace, as well as the issues of relations and ties in the professional environment have long aroused considerable interest among psychologists and management practitioners. The organizational climate, which is defined as a set of beliefs about the organization, its relations, the atmosphere of the workplace, circulation of communication, development opportunities, etc., has often been associated with well-being and job satisfaction. Performing work related to numerous stress factors and difficult situations may significantly affect how both the professional environment and employees’ well-being are perceived. Many empirical studies concerning work psychology and organization, including the works of Rosenstiel and Boegel, Gonzales-Roma, Peiro, Schneider and Earhart underline the importance of the organization climate in the construction of efficient and effectively functioning organizations. One of its important aspects is the level of social relationships and cooperation within an organization. Ties in the workplace are defined as the quality and depth of relations between members of an organization. Studies presented in this paper are of an exploratory nature due to the sector specificity, i.e., aviation and provision of services related to ground control operations. The aim of the empirical research presented herein is to verify the assumption about mutual relations between such variables as the perceived climate of the workplace and interpersonal bonds, as well as experiencing negative emotional states, such as the sense of danger and stress. The psychological literature suggests that low evaluation of the organizational climate parameters should be related to worse, more negative evaluation of the workplace and that the dissatisfaction within the scope of ties and relations with employees affects the perception of stress and threat. In the course of the study, 326 persons working at Pyrzowice and Szymany (Poland) and Kosice (Slovakia) have been examined. Polish employees dominated in this group (250 persons). The remaining group was constituted of individuals working at the Kosice (Slovakia) airport. The respondents represent a specific professional group. The authors tried to learn the specificity of the stress and threat experiencing process due to organizational variables—such as aspects related to evaluation of the workplace and the feeling of ties. To achieve this goal, in the course of statistical analyses, models were built to predict the sense of danger and stress among the surveyed population. A hierarchical regression analysis was carried out in order to determine which of the variables allow predicting the sense of danger and stress in the examined occupational group. The results showed that the higher sense of threat was predicted by the less positive views about the workload, the social support and by the higher ratings of ties in the workplace. In this model, the statistically significant predictors of the sense of threat were the perception of workload (β = − 0.184; s.e. = 0.29; t = −3.297; p < 0.001), the social support (β = − 0.272; s.e. = 0.52; t = −3.916; p < 0.001) and ties in the workplace (β = 0.115; s.e. = 0.51; t = 2.162; p = 0.031). Additionally, the higher level of sense of stress was predicted by the less positive views about the workload, fair play and by the higher sense of threat. The final model explained 12% of all variability regarding the sense of stress (R² = 0.115; F [8, 317] = 5.122; p < 0.001). In this model, the statistically significant predictors of the sense of stress were the workload (β = − 0.120; s.e. = 0.11; t = −2.079; p = 0.038), sense of justice (β = 0.160; s.e. = 0.20; t = 1.965; p < 0.001) and the sense of threat (β = 0.219; s.e. = 0.02; t = 3.859; p < 0.001). The interest in employees from the aviation sector stems from the lack of empirical data on how people working in this industry function psychologically. This branch of industry is currently developing extremely dynamically and is expected to evolve even more in the wake of the industrial revolution 4.0. Work in the field of modern industry 4.0 forces the employees to acquire many important competencies related to managing new, automated working conditions. As suggested by some authors (Popkova, 2019; Neufeind, 2018), in the light of the 4.0 revolution, one must assume that both the requirements of the work environment and reactions and behavior of employees will differ from the more typical and stable organizational conditions. Meanwhile, in the light of automation and specificity of the industry in question, not much attention is paid to human resources, who—while cooperating in various teams (organic and inorganic)—experience various challenges, as well as difficulties resulting from their professional work. Full article