Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors

This study aims to analyze changes in the annual occurrence rate of occupational accidents by industry and by accident type, and to clarify the risk of occupational accidents by age. Based on the published number of casualties and number of employees, the annual number of casualties per 1000 workers was calculated. Although the occurrence rate of occupational accidents in the manufacturing industry and in the construction industry exhibited similar tendencies, risk for construction workers in their late teens was extremely high. The distributions of risk of falls and of cuts and abrasions differed greatly by age. In the future, we plan to make use of these data for safety management of sites and for improvement of workers’ safety awareness.

The current hegemony of the mechanistic thinking, deeply rooted in the machine image, and the analysis procedure that involves breaking down complex things into simple ones in order to find their existing meaning, together with a great coincidence, have all led to talk about the human being exclusively, as a mere component or casual factor in risk situations. We make the human being responsible for a load that business managers and politicians would share equally. This is all due to an inadequate global security response. The individual is intentionally separated from the environment. Why? In order to make him causal factor and main subject in risk situations, especially in those with political implications. Our work involves understanding human participation in unwanted events from the ethic idea of responsibility and reliability in all organizations, instead of from the individual error thinking.

The relationship between quantity and quality of what is produced and its creative processes do not always bring the desired responses for the end user. The objective of this work is to develop a project tool that can contribute in design methodologies for safety assessment of artifacts for restricted use in the activity of Public Safety through Risk Management and Vulnerability. Sought the insertion of the knowledge of an expert in the subject area working the risks and vulnerabilities present to get an artifact the best possible demand draft. Hence the importance of producing a range of values through a rational and practical tool.

Waiting time at an intensive care unity stands for a key feature in the assessment of healthcare quality. Nevertheless, its estimation is a difficult task, not only due to the different factors with intricate relations among them, but also with respect to the available data, which may be incomplete, self-contradictory or even unknown. However, its prediction not only improves the patients’ satisfaction but also enhance the quality of the healthcare being provided. To fulfill this goal, this work aims at the development of a decision support system that allows one to predict how long a patient should remain at an emergency unit, having into consideration all the remarks that were just stated above. It is built on top of a Logic Programming approach to knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with a Case Base approach to computing.

Safety coordination is quite often underestimated in large construction sites with insufficient focus paid thereto. The problem lies primarily in the lack of the contractors’ awareness to legal requirements, thereof concerning insufficient allocation of financial means to Safety and this not only on the side of the Owner, but also on the side of the contractors. All of the above stated points contribute to the high rate of incidents’ occurrence in construction sites.

Demands are always made on the performance of qualified personnel. They have to deal with more issues for quality tasks fulfillment regarding its content and also the extent. The pre-requisite for a successful management of this stress without reducing the level of quality of provided service is the use of software applications. These, however, can be a useful tool only if they are purposefully and professionally appropriate but also simple to apply. The need for software equipment is on the daily programmes not only in office work. Even a simple administrative activity cannot be done without a computer not to mention employment e.g.: a security technician or a coordinator on construction sites, who use the software programmes for their job and a lot of information from the Internet. This information are linked mainly in areas of health and safety at work, fire protection, civil protection and environmental protection. The basic modules must be: (1) national legislation, (2) documentation, (3) risk analysis, (4) registry. In addition to the practical use of the software in practice, application must have a modern look and design, must be easily handled with simple orientation in the program and usability of comprehensive and extensive search. Work of a technician is flexible in time and in space. It often happens, that access is limited or there is no access to the internet in the field. Therefore is a necessity, the application has on-line, but also off-line version. The advantage of any software is the ability to backup data, In order to prevent possible loss of important data and information, quick access to legislation, documents, training, risks and other parts of the software.

Reason’s typology of safety culture (i.e. Just, Informative, Learning, Flexible and Reporting cultures) is widely used in the industry and academia. Through literature review we developed a framework including 36 markers that reflect the operationalization of Reason’s sub-cultures and general organizational prerequisites. We used the framework to assess to what extent safety culture development guidelines of seven industry sectors (i.e. aviation, railway, oil and gas, nuclear, healthcare, defense and maritime) incorporate academic references, and are similar to each other. Gap analysis and statistics showed that the guidelines include 53–69 % of the safety culture markers, with significant differences across subcultures and industry sectors. The results suggested that there is a gap between the industry guidelines and literature, as well as variant approaches to safety culture across the industry. The framework suggested in the study might be used as reference for completing existing safety culture development plans and constructing safety culture assessment instruments.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of work organization on the health and well-being of elderly workers in a water and sanitation municipal service at Lisbon metropolitan area. This study involved 31 male participants, included in the category of operational assistant, who work as shakers and plumbers. Data collection was conducted through interviews as well as direct and indirect observations of real work, with posterior application of the REBA method. After data collection, it was observed that the activities analyzed showed mostly medium to high level of risk for development of musculoskeletal disorders by age and seniority of the workers. However, as most workers are 45 years old or more, there was no statistical significance between the occurrence of musculoskeletal pain and age of the worker. The only variable found that was statistically significant to the occurrence of musculoskeletal symptoms was seniority, showing the painfulness of constraints which workers are exposed to.

The study examines OHS practices and the regulatory regime in the Ghanaian oil fields. Using the systematic content analysis, the primary qualitative method obtained data from regulators agencies, operators, sub-contracted companies of the upstream and other external opinions. Findings discovered that in the absence of solid OHS regulations, partners of the Ghanaian oil fields play collaborative role in promoting health and safety in their operations. Meanwhile, observation further revealed the country’s legal provisions on crude production are bereft not because of no specific OHS legislations but are largely to the discretion of operators due to inadequate expertise, logistics, monitoring and surveillance. Owing to frail regulatory governance, operators are driven by reputational goals rather than external pressures in promoting OHS practices. The paper proposes for the Ghanaian regulatory frameworks to work as coercive pressures for the IOCs to be proactive in promoting health, social and environmental consciousness in the oil fields.

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is specialized clothing or equipment worn to minimize exposure to a variety of hazards. As an example, wearing multiple layers of work gloves is common in several industries such as food processing and healthcare. Despite the widespread use of gloves, there are no known published studies that have developed donning and doffing times for layers of protective work gloves. Each glove layer has a time associated with donning and doffing depending not only on the glove but also on the other layers being worn. We use Time Study to empirically develop standards for donning and doffing times of multiple layers of work gloves in four different combinations.

Situational Awareness (SAW) is the ability of a human to perceive, understand and project the states of assets in a real-world environment. In the emergency management domain, SAW is developed by means of a range of information collected from several sources, typically in real time. With this amount of information to be observed by the human operator, the development of SAW is a very complex and dynamic task. To assist this process of developing SAW, several technological and informational approaches have been developed to support decision-making systems, bringing together situational assessment routines (e.g., acquisition, processing and presentation) for the human operator to build SAW based on the information at hand, which can be very quality-limited in many aspects, depending on their source. Since such systems employ concepts and techniques of data and information fusion to perform information integration, issues regarding synergistic information association emerge. In order to enhance and improve this process, it is proposed in this paper a new fusion approach using the concepts of data quality and semantics.

Contemporaneous life encourages individuals spending too much time indoors. Workplace environments are changing due to new methods of work, technology and the need to answer to user’s requirements and expectations. Interior environments are supported by natural and artificial light. It is widely accepted that natural light has a significant impact in individual sense of comfort and well-being; artificial light does not present the same positive impact in individuals. For organizations energy efficiency is the main goal, neglecting the impact on human well-being and performance. There is a multidisciplinary approach to lighting design research but the gap between the results and their application in practice still exist. This paper aims to raise the discussion around lighting design in working environments and the need to improve the contribute of natural light and the need to study carefully artificial light solutions towards the management of its effects in human visual and non-visual systems.

An experiment tested the effects of audio, visual, and heat stimuli on pilot performance during high cognitive workload (critical) phases of flight. The experiment tested pilots flying a flight simulator while performing tracking tasks and secondary cognitive tasks with external audio and visual stimuli present. The results of this study indicate that with the tested combination of audio, visual, and heat stimuli present, the change in pilot tracking task performance was not statistically significant. However, pilots’ secondary cognitive task performance decreased with the presence of these external stressors. Although these results indicate that the presence of the tested combination of external stimuli adversely affected pilots’ secondary task performance in a laboratory setting, because of the drastic difference in experimental conditions versus actual flight conditions, it is concluded that the tested combination of stimuli is safe to utilize in any bird strike countermeasure system intended to be implemented on an aircraft.

The ergonomics industry contributes to improve the efficiency, reliability and quality of industrial operations, the aim being to prevent rallying this study, in order to implement working conditions which prevent the onset of MSDs. This study was developed in Swedwood Portugal. The company has its own production lines in jobs that require intervention in order to reduce the risk of developing MSDs. To quantify the level of risk and an ergonomic elaboration of an action plan for preventive and corrective measures to be implemented, the company proceeded with the application of ergonomic evaluation methodology and analysis of anthropometric data. The research was conducted in three phases: (1) application of methodology Checklist OSHA, allowing you to prioritize more detailed evaluations and adapt the methodology of level 2, (2) workload assessment with the methodology RULA (classification integrated risk of MSDs) and Equation NIOSH (calculation of the recommended weight limit). Results suggest that it is imperative to ascertain and make immediate modifications in 65 % of jobs (e.g. First post battens receipt of PAUL; mounting frames; Assembly Sandwich BOF; Packaging Genax 2 rank 1), 25 % may need a few changes (e.g. Inspection of parts lacquering; Placement in HDF glue machine; Packaging Genax 2 position 0) and in 10 % of the posts it is urgent to further analyse and make the respective changes (e.g. Mount honeycomb; supply station assembly honeycomb). The results indicate the need to implement preventive and corrective measures, using tools of ergonomics and engineering, such as interventions based on anthropometry, organization of working time, changes in the working methods, reorganization of production layout and equipment introduction aid to the implementation of tasks.

Occupational safety remains a challenge to each and every nation and also it plays a vital role. The same is ignored in India, which causes intolerable effects resulting in medium to fatal accidents at the workplace. The focus of review paper is to explore the impact of occupational safety with the aid of data taken from industries on national and international level. Different researchers have pointed out various parameters that could be the possible requirement in view of occupational safety for the workforce especially in manufacturing industries. The study is carried out in two phases. First phase caters the collection of data from various sectors such as private industries, industry department offices, official government sites, different government policies, internet and national data analysis. Second phase is to analyze and pinpoint the critical parameters which require immediate attention to slow down the accident rate in Indian industries. It is concluded from the studies summarized in this paper that there should be stringent procedures drafted and implemented as far as occupational safety of workforce is concerned. The studies revealed that the parameters needs attention and should be deliberated in more meaningful manner such as management involvement, worker safety, training, personal protective equipment, workplace layout, fire fighting arrangement, workplace environment, welfare and medical facilities. The rate of accidents in Indian industry can be lowered with proper training programs in the form of worker training camps, conferences, workshops that can be initiated time to time for the workforce which should be industry specific.

Occupational noise still remains one of the most prevalent occupational health and safety problems. Hearing protectors are very important in providing proper protection for workers’ hearing ability in noisy working environments. The protection efficiency of wearing hearing protectors such as earplug depends heavily on whether it is fitting inner the ear. Three-dimensional (3D) surface anthropometry enables us to collect key dimensions to fit between ear canal and earplug. However, few studies explore the relationship between hearing protectors and 3D canal data. Therefore, this study employs an ear impression injection and 3D scanning of ear impression to measure the external auditory canal size of Taiwanese adult, and find the key dimensions of EAC to provides a reference for hear protecting earplug design. 220 ear canal impressions were taken from both side ears of 110 adults. The portable 3D Camera was used to collect 3D auditory canal data from the ear impression models. The results of the study show that the key dimensions of external auditory canal for hearing protection are the length, width, depth of cavum concha, the ear aperture length and width, the canal isthmus, and the length of from ear aperture to first bend and second bend. In addition, we find the differences in ear canal size between men and women. The results of this study can give references for designing and choosing earplugs, achieve the objective of hearing protection for workers.

The individual’s perception and understanding obtainment on events that transform an environment and their real critical contexts, is named Situational Awareness (SA). This process assists emergency management situation, allowing experts on SA acquisition and maintenance process, and provide subsidies for an assertive decision making. Specialized SA User Interfaces (UI) may facilitate the knowledge acquisition, allowing the perception and dynamic comprehension. The UIs design of SA-oriented systems in critical scenarios, as emergency management is a challenging issue, considering the presence of multiple heterogeneous data source, the information about situation that’s in constant transformation and quality limitations associated every new inference. Known approaches seek to present specifically solutions to their application domain and are inevitably limited as the described needs in this paper. This paper presents the UI development to promote the visualization and situational information evolution follow-up, information quality aware, driven to a case of study in emergency management, which includes new challenges like the data presentation from human intelligence.

Face recognition has gained interest due to largely growing public concerns for safety, specifically due to many terror activities around the world. These problems of terror increased the demand of suitable face recognition system in security applications. Face detection is the initial step for face recognition and it has been widely researched and examined. Numerous methods have been proposed with high detection rates in restricted scene. However, in unrestricted scene those method failed to perform accurate detection. The main challenges to deal in uncontrolled scene are detection of multiview, illuminated, occluded and blur faces. This research paper has studied the issues of face detection in unconstrained scene. More specifically, it has discussed the existing occluded face detection methods. Based upon the survey of different face detection methods, a half occluded face detection method is proposed. In order to deal with half occluded faces, new type of image features are proposed.

The causal relationship between safety climate and safety behavior is examined in numerous studies, however the pathway that mediates this relationship is still unclear. Viewing safety through the lens of the ‘Psychological Contract’ it is argued that ‘Psychological Contract of Safety’ (PCSaf), could be a vital factor for improving safety performance. Previous research suggests that (1); safety climate is based on perception of workers regarding safety and (2); PCSaf is based on perceived mutual obligations between workers and supervisors, as a result, if PCSaf or mutual obligations between workers and supervisors are fulfilled, then safety behavior of the workers will be positively influenced. A proposed model of Psychological Contract of Safety (PCSaf) as an alternative intervention in the understanding and management of safety practice is presented. A final model will deepen understanding and reveal relationships between safety climate and safety behavior on construction sites.

Resilience engineering has been suggested to represent a new strategy for improving health and safety management. However, what resilience engineering is, and/or how it is different to organisational resilience is unclear. This paper provides a survey-of-the-art of RE in its widest context, based on a review of 46 articles published between January 1988 and December 2012. The state-of-art suggests that (i) a significant portion of literature comes out of work done in aviation, healthcare, nuclear and petro-chemical industries; (ii) there is no clear definition of OR, or of RE; (iii) RE lacks a clearly defined theoretical framework, and (iv) the gap between work as imagined and work as performed is an important reference point for research and practice in RE. The paper provides a working definition of RE and identifies a number of areas for advancing research and practice in this area of organisational health and safety management.

The construction stage of a building lifecycle is a very dynamic stage with several activities on the job site that involve materials, workers, and moving and handling equipment. These construction activities should be sustainable and at the same time be safe for workers. Although many countries have construction safety and health regulations as well as green building rating systems (including for construction), they are not integrated: each has its own separate procedures and regulating institutions. This research aims to review the available literature related to construction sustainability and construction worker safety and health. It will assist in exploring the integration of worker safety and health into sustainable construction practices. The research findings demonstrate the need and significance of integrating worker safety and health into sustainable construction practices, as it can realize cost efficiencies.

The paper focuses at provision of a practical guide for the use during the safety coordination, work leaders/managers at implementation of construction projects and maintenance activities to create safe working conditions and to minimize the risk and number of work accidents. The thesis includes applicable practical solutions and procedures. In our contribution we tried to define the basic procedures that would contribute to safety coordination improvement on the sites not only in Slovakia while emphasizing the trends focused on monitoring human behavior, since human failures cause up to the two thirds of incidents. Data are taken from a nuclear power plant construction with over 40 million hours worked at various civil and installation activities. The tools we can use as efficiency indicators of individual actions taken. Their application in correct time can significantly contribute to minimize the work accidents and to protect health of employees.

The Ghanaian construction industry has been domination by Small and Medium Sized-Enterprises (SMEs) contractors and this domination has been attributed to the rate of urbanization in the country. Whilst, poor Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practices by these contracts have resulted in a high rate of occupational accidents. Non-compliance with Health and Safety (H&S) regulations among SMEs contractors’ has led to their inability to manage Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). The purpose of the study was to identify the causes of SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations. An extant review of literature was conducted, that provided the road map to source out information relevant to SMEs contractors’ Health and Safety (H&S) practices in Ghana. The study adopted the Delphi survey method of data collection to investigate the study objective. List of experts (construction professionals and academics) were generated from peered reviewed conference proceedings and journal articles. A structured Delphi technique questionnaires were administered amongst the selected construction experts who consented to participate in the study. The rating of the SMEs non-compliance with H&S regulations were based on either the impact was considered to be high or very high. Data collected were analysed using Microsoft EXCEL, spread-sheet software. The findings reveal that limited knowledge of OHS, unavailabilty of H&S policy and knowledge on H&S policy implementation have high impact on SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations. Other findings were that the SME contractors provided limited training to their employees on H&S regulations and management bottleneck. The study contribute to the body of knowledge on the causes of SMEs contractors’ non-compliance with H&S regulations in the Ghanaian construction industry.

Camera monitor systems (CMS) and mirrors are intended to support excavator operators’ understanding of the surrounding and help prevent accidents. However, little is known about visual information acquisition of operators of large construction machinery, especially during machine movements. In this field study, utilization of viewing aids and other information sources during rotating movements of excavators was investigated by means of eye-tracking and task observation. Results show that, while CMS monitors and left mirrors were used for many rotating movements, other information sources around the machine were also attended, such as the right frontolateral area and the area around the attachment. The article discusses implications for safety and machinery design, such as positioning of viewing aids.

The construction industry is frequently cited for its poor safety performance. In spite of this, many countries continue to rely on contemporary, prescriptive approaches to improve performance in the sector. In Australia, one such approach, Safe Work Method Statements (SWIMS), have been mandated in construction work. However, there is limited empirical research on SWIMS, so their ability to improve health and safety is largely unknown. This is a significant gap in our knowledge. Recent research suggests that Resilience Engineering (RE), which is an innovation in organisational health and safety management, offers a promising approach, by understanding the gap between work as imagined and work as performed. SWIMS provide a practical tool by which such a gap can be investigated in construction settings. Recent research also suggests that organisations are part of a broader socio-technical system. As such, gaining a view of the different elements of the system is an important first step towards developing an understanding of the role SWIMS play in health and safety risk management. This paper first describes the socio-technical system that constitute construction work; followed by an exploration of the meaning SWIMS as ascribed by the external agencies as the first ‘outsider’ of this system. It is based on an analysis of data collected as part of a larger PhD study of the prescription and practice of SWMS in the Australian construction industry.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) is one of Indonesian economics unit. In facing the competition of the global era, business owners challenged to work more efficient also more effective. Foundry industry is a SME industry body to process ore into finished metal. One of the critical work stations is on the lathing section. In this industry most workers are not using personal protective equipment in the working environment. This study aim to identify the hazard based on risk control and assessment methods. Sixty three participants was conduct in this study. The result shows that hazard identification consist of corrosive materials, flammable liquids, manual material handling risks, non-ergonomic tool design risk, WMSDs risk, the risk of getting work injury, indoor air quality, and machine hazard.

The improvement in the quality of life of older people goes far beyond the responsibility of the healthcare sector. Thus, it seems necessary to create accident prevention strategies and manage all the conditions involving the physical and social environment of the elderly. Although it is widely recognized that aging is a process that affects all human beings, it is noted that very often the elderly refuse to notice or consider this process, since the residential dwellings remain without any adjustments or with slightly adaptations, for almost their entire life. The purpose of this study is to discuss the perception of the elderly regarding the relationship between accident risk at home and their physical condition when performing daily activities, by establishing a comparison between the activities carried out by the elderly and the needed home adjustments throughout their life cycle.

We investigated the effects of multiple wireless devices on human performance in emergency situations. The objective of the research was to observe in a naturalistic setting the kinds of interpersonal and wireless communication losses experienced by first responders during emergency responses, and to determine both their causes and their effects on human performance and safety. Assessment of the cognitive and physical workload of first responders indicated moderate levels of workload and perceived temporal stress. Although tactical team leaders naturally experience increased workload due to the nature of their roles, radio communications loss did not significantly impact that load. However, it was noted that despite the safety detriments, first responders continued with mission tasks without ensuring an acceptable level of radio communication with cohorts. Recommendations were made to mitigate communications loss, minimize risk, enhance safety, and ensure first responders maintain situation awareness.

This work presents the mental workload analysis within the manufacturing industry that produced automotive product. The productivity of company dropped to 77, 13 % from January to March 2015 while product defects and absenteeism increased from 1.63 to 3.49 %. This paper aimed to measure the mental workload based on job position and the shift work. The method that used is NASA-TLX, which involved 48 employees. The result shown that the highest mental workload (MWL) was in night shift with MWL score 71.9, and iindicator of temporal demand on the morning shift by 18.2. Whereas the post of leader has the highest score which is 70.2. Because the mental workload is high, the researchers proposed to conduct relaxation training, where most of employees stated that their body and mind become fresh and willingly to continuously apply the relaxation training.

A common setup for industrial machines is to install a pair of actuator buttons a safe distance from the point of operation. Safety codes specify that minimum distance by assuming a constant hand speed of 1.6 m/s. To examine the adequacy of that value, a simulated power press with a moving ram was set up for measuring actual hand speed for three placements of the buttons. For each placement, a randomized complete block experiment with nine students provided after-reach hand speed data. Results indicated that after-reach hand speed is not a constant because it varies both with placement of the buttons and distance within placement.

This study intended to find whether music teachers’ exposure to noise has got potential to produce hearing impairments and to investigate their actual hearing status. Twenty music teachers from a Portuguese college-level school of music were surveyed for their daily noise exposure and were submitted to several hearing tests. Occupational history, self-reported hearing disorders and use of personal hearing protectors were among the information collected with a questionnaire. Most teacher’s daily exposure to noise is below 80 dB(A), and less than 15 % of them were diagnosed with mild sensorineural hearing loss. Occupational exposure to noise does not seem to be the only factor responsible for this impairment. Recommendations on how to reduce the risk of hearing loss and control noise exposures are suggested and awareness rising strategies are under consideration.

Elderly and other mobility reduced persons (PRM) are often dependent on the assistance of rescue workers in evacuations. However, only few rescue devices are suitable for evacuations in multi-storey environments, such as high-rise buildings. Moreover, efficiency is a critical factor for potentially dangerous rescue work as well as a psychological factor for waiting PRM. Hence, the presented research aims at increasing efficiency of person transportation in evacuation situations while protecting the health of rescue workers against injuries by the selection of rescue devices. A criteria catalogue in consideration of the needs of rescue workers and PRM and device dissemination was developed. Subsequently, rescue devices were selected for a realistic investigation on a multi-storey passenger ship for level and stairway transports. A rescue chair with a gliding track-system in the downstairs condition resulted in the lowest physical strain and a fabric rescue seat with over shoulder strap was revealed most flexible.

This study uses the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to quantify important safety parameters and to analyse the weight scores of main and sub parameters. Questionnaires have been developed for collecting the expert feedback. Based on the analysis of expert’s choice and consistency test, this study identified the weight scores of nine main and forty sub-factors. The purpose of this study is to prioritise the safety parameters of manufacturing industries regarding worker’s safety according to the expert’s choice. Six experts are taken from manufacturing industry background. The results of this study shows that personal protective equipment (PPE) has the first priority with highest weightage i.e. 30.6 % and workplace layout and housekeeping at last with 2.5 % weightage. The entire main and sub-factors have consistency ratio less than 10 % which is acceptable. It is recommended that PPE should be provided to the workers in manufacturing industries for safe work environment.

The urinary excretion of methylhippurics, mandelic and phenylglyoxylic acids was studied in histopathological technicians (102 subjects; 14 men and 88 women) exposed to Xylol (xylenes and ethylbenzene). From each worker, the urine sample was analyzed by HPLC-UV and xylene isomers and ethylbenzene in air samples were determined by GC-FID. The mean values of time-weighted average (TWA) exposure to xylol in the Pathological Anatomy Lab were 119 ± 49 p.p.m. (mean ± S.D.) with a range 50–190 p.p.m. for xylene and 131 ± 50 p.p.m. with a range 68–200 p.p.m. for ethylbenzene. There was a linear correlation between the 8-h time weighted average exposure either to xylene isomers or ethylbenzene and the concentrations of methylhippuric acids (MHA) isomers or mandelic (MA) and phenylglyoxylic acids (PGA) in urine. The r2 value for the regression equation between total xylenes exposure and total MHA was 0.471 (positive correlation) and for the regression equation between ethylbenzene and MA + PGA was 0.950 (high positive correlation). No difference was found in the correlation between quantitative exposure and excretion in the three xylene isomers. Both MHA and MA + PGA can be used as indicators of commercial xylol exposures. So, the determination of the concentration of these metabolites in post-shift urine provides an effective means of estimating and monitoring human exposure to Xylol. Extrapolation of data from this study predicted a MHA concentration in post-shift urine of 1.27 g/g creatinine after exposure to a TWA of 100 p.p.m. of total xylenes and 0.7 g/g creatinine of MA + PGA after exposure to a TWA of 100 p.p.m. of ethylbenzene.

This work described an analysis study of the risk of occupational exposure to formaldehyde in pathology labs of university. One hundred thirty-two air samples of the breathing zone were collected in the activity labs (macroscopic examination of surgical pieces or biopsy, tissue processing and chemical waste disposal), during five weeks. To quantify the formaldehyde present in the ambient of histology laboratory, NIOSH 2016 method was used, for this matrix, based on the formaldehyde derivatization reaction in tubes acidified with 2,4-DNPH was optimized. The geometric mean ambient concentrations of formaldehyde, among the activities under investigation, were between 0.7 and 3.7 ppm indicating high levels of the substance during the week. It was verified that 100 % of the students had exposures above the exposure limit, i.e., greater than a maximum concentration (MC) of 0.3 ppm (NP 1796: 2007).

In the past, anthropometrical data have been collected only on microgravity, or measured from Apollo mission images, leading to low accuracy of the data [1]. Starting with Virtual Reality—based experiments, this research provides an investigation into methodologies that focuses on the collection of basic anthropometrical and postural data needed to develop interfaces for the Moon and Mars gravity environments. The learning objectives of this work are: (1) Analysis of methodologies for studying human movement and posture in Moon-Mars gravity; (2) Development of new instruments of investigation and methodologies; (3) Support of user-centered design in Moon Mars habitat projects.

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is a framework for classifying and analyzing human factors associated with accidents and incidents. It is a commonly utilized tool for investigating human contributions to aviation accidents in China. Human factors also contribute to many accidents in petro-chemical industry. The goal of this paper is to apply HFACS approach to analysis of explosion at Bi-benzene Plant in Jilin and classify the human factors causing the occurrence of this accident. Results showed that HFACS is useful and feasible in accident analysis in this case. And, the human factors were clearly classified for the cause analysis. Recommendations were proposed to include HFACS in accident investigation.

This paper aims to describe the development of an ergonomic program based on the principles of Participatory Ergonomics, in order to implement workplace improvements. A case study was conducted in an industrial plant where several musculoskeletal disorders were previously identified as being the main cause of a high absenteeism. As a result of the ergonomic intervention program, several different improvements measures were implemented, improving several workplace aspects, namely workers’ posture and, consequently, their working conditions. The obtained results indicate that there was a significant ergonomic improvement in tasks where the proposed measures have been implemented. The workers’ satisfaction has increased considerably after the implementation of the suggested measures. Finally, it was possible to conclude that based in the success of this project, the same approach can also be extended to the remaining company’s workplaces.

Fatigue is currently one of the hottest topic in transport safety research, since it has been recognized as one of the key factors in several industrial incidents/accidents. The aeronautical industry is currently working in developing standards and regulation for FRMS, Fatigue Management Risk Systems, with the aim of helping aeronautical organizations to reduce the hazards associated with fatigued workers. The implementation of such systems is difficult and requires high effort in training, dissemination and awareness. They may greatly benefit from the development of curricula and training materials widely available through internet but also from SW or mobile applications for workers, and also for organizations, that helps them to identify fatigue situations and manage derived risk. This paper presents an initiative carried out by students of the UPM Master in Air Transport System to develop “Friendly Fatigue Alert” mobile applications, designed specifically to help workers manage alertness and fatigue that will allow workers to estimate, detect, measure and mitigate their fatigue.

Medical data is more and more offloaded onto servers and cloud systems to enable fast access to patient’s medical record by creating Electronic Health Records (EHR). Since almost each patient has mobile devices with bio sensors, mobile devices are often connected to the EHRs and transfer data between Medical Cloud and mobile devices. Since medical data is sensitive by nature and must be secured, different approaches are used to achieve basic and advanced level of protection of these data. The main contribution in this paper is the proposed multi-layered security model, along with the ergonomic analysis of the system to provide better healthcare system for patients and medical personnel. Our QoE metrics and analysis is used to analyze and accommodate the system on users’ needs.

Awkward and uncomfortable postures when maintained for long periods of time could stress and fatigue supporting muscles and tendons, leading to the development of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). An Ergonomic Work Analysis was required to assess and evaluate the working conditions in a pathological anatomy laboratory. The objectives of this study were: assess the actual working conditions of the professionals in that service; establish relationships between them and the complaints presented; identify and select the most painful task/workstation, characterize this task/workstation in terms of the associated MSD development risk and, finally, identify and propose some preventive measures. The Rapid Upper Limb Assessment was used and the results revealed that the risk for the development of MSD is present in all tasks. The three most critical tasks were identified. Considering the self-reported physical symptoms, the results were similar with the other studies reported.

Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) are pathologies of great impact in the working population. The main risk factor in the onset of these diseases are the postures adopted and held by the workers or, in other words, the critical joint angles adopted by them during significant time periods. Large exposure periods usually occur in the workplace. The influence of the postures adopted at the workplace has been studied by several authors who have developed different methodologies for the corresponding risk assessment (e.g., OWAS, RULA, REBA, LUBA, PATH, etc.). There is also a European standard, the EN 1005-4:2005 that is applied to the evaluation of working postures and movements in relation to machinery. The main problem while using these methodologies is the difficulty of knowing the specific angle adopted at a given joint. Currently, this is not a problem since some new technology enables accurate position sensing of any body part. Nowadays, 3D cameras can recreate the specific body segment in the three planes of space with high accuracy by using passive markers that are placed in different anatomical references, allowing to obtain the speed, trajectory, and angles variation data. Additionally, through the use of surface electromyography (sEMG) it is also possible to obtain data about different muscle activation patterns. This paper intends to present a comparative analysis of the angles used by major research methodologies in the field of WMSDs. It tries to establish the reference ranges of angles with their corresponding score for a later ergonomics assessment. The idea is to use that reference with new technologies as 3D cameras and surface EMG, in order to accurately assess and score postures adopted in every workplace.

This paper discusses a case from an automotive industry plant where ergonomic problems were identified corresponding to inadequate postures resulting from operations performed above the workers’ head height. Company’s economic situation didn’t allowed to consider the automation of the operation despite the recognized need to reduce or, ideally, to eliminate the risk to operators. In this context the use of the TRIZ methodology offers an opportunity to identify potential solutions. Therefore, the TRIZ’s Su-Field Analysis was used, with the support of an adapted Contradiction Matrix. This approach allowed obtaining a more structured solution, combining Ergonomics with Lean management principles. The outcome of implementing the proposed solution was the elimination of wastes and the improvement of workplaces’ ergonomic quality. Furthermore, the study provided some insights on ways of eliminating or reducing existing Occupational Safety issues in the near future.

According to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), the automotive industry contributes with the 25 % of the Gross Domestic Product of the State of Puebla. In this matter, Puebla has 160 companies and employs 56,000 workers. The lower back pain represents the first cause of absenteeism in work places at Mexico. This situation is generated by materials handling or load lifting. The research was made in the assembly of a component of the vehicle powertrain in a Mexican metallurgical factory. Two assemblies were assessed with ergonomics tools in order to identify overload lifting and repetitive movements’ risks. In addition, Methods Time Measurement techniques were considered to calculate the cycle time in the work stations studied and its relationship with ergonomics. The improvements resulted in a production increase of 6.89 % and 45 shifts less.

It is estimated that in about 30 countries, approximately 13 million people are directly engaged in small scale mining. Small scale mining activities centre on the production of gold in many countries, including the Philippines. These activities heavily rely on manual labour that include frequent or heavy lifting, pushing or pulling heavy objects, prolonged awkward postures, vibrations, and repetitive, forceful, or prolonged exertion of the hands. Thus, workers are exposed to risk factors associated with Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WMSD). This study aims to estimate the prevalence of Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSD) in small scale gold mining and extraction in the Philippines through the occurrence of Work-related Musculoskeletal Symptoms (WMSS). A survey, using modified Nordic questionnaire, of 124 miners from different mining sites showed 95 % of the interviewees perceived WMSS in at least one part of their bodies, with highest prevalence in lower back (65 %), shoulders (60 %), and neck (54 %).

This study demonstrates that the ergonomic analyses of work must consider why a worker adopts certain movements (gestures) when performing assembly tasks. It discusses the balance between allowing the worker to freely choose the way of assembling goods and providing guidance. On two assembly tasks in a furniture manufacturer, this research performs an ergonomic analysis in which worker movements are emphasized and it investigates the impact of these strategies on the ergonomic risk and on the worker’s health. Data collection instruments included direct observation, unstructured interviews and film footage. The ergonomic analyses show that the work environments are ergonomic, but workers adopt their own movements, unaware that these are awkward postures. Guidance proved to be effective in improving ergonomic risks. This article highlights the significance of understanding work movement, its implications in the corporate training programs as well as in the ergonomic risks and in the worker’s health.

Occupational accidents not only lead to serious damages or loss of life and money, but also cause a serious reduction of the productivity. Existing occupational health and safety practices are not sufficient to prevent the construction accidents in Turkey. Especially, in construction industry the accident rate is five times higher than the employment rate. Benefiting from more realistic and objective risk assessment methods can help to reduce the accident rates. Therefore, accident probabilities should be calculated objectively without considering personal experiences or subjective assessments. In this study an objective and quantitative accident probability calculation approach is proposed. Firstly, the accident probability is redefined. Based on this definition the accident probability became a function of accident rates and worker exposure values. The accident rates were calculated from statistics of real accidents. In order to determine accident rates expert witness reports that were examined for 13 years (2000–2013) and the statistics that were presented by Social Security Institution were used. In total 623 expert witness reports that belonging the actual construction work accidents between 2000 and 2013 were analyzed. The exposure values were calculated from the man—hour values that were taken from project schedules and planning tables. Then, accident probabilities were calculated by using a Poisson distribution model where accident rates and exposure values were used as a distribution parameter. Within the scope of this study, instead of focusing all construction activities it was decided to focus on 5 main activities which show the highest accident rate in order to provide better results to prevent accidents. These five main activities were chosen as; Excavation, Reinforced Concrete Works, Masonry, Plaster and Painting Works, Roof Works. In an industry like construction industry where the accidents are recorded in non-specific standards, it is very difficult to represent probability of accidents with a known distribution model. Thanks to the approach presented in this study it was possible to provide an objective method to obtain accident probabilities using Poisson distribution.

Night work is responsible not only for changes in sleep, but major changes in the production of cortisol. The shiftwork has become shared these days; however, this practice affects the health of workers. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of shift work in the prevalence of morbidity in vigilant workers. The sample consisted of 21 guards of a company’s electricity branch in the city of Foz do Iguaçu, Paraná, Brazil. After signing the informed consent form, the questionnaire research of stress symptoms for adults was applied. The collection of the hormone cortisol has been through a salive up early in the 1st round (6:30–7:05) and at the end of the morning shift (5:30–6:05). Analyses of the hormone cortisol was in the laboratory, through the electrochemiluminescence method. The data showed 66.8 % with bad and very bad sleep in the morning shift, 72 % said fatigue and insomnia, irritability 81 and 91 % drowsiness. The damage to family, health and social showed 90.6, 71.5 and 85.8 % respectively. It was observed that in the group for 71 % in stress resistance phase. The values of salivary cortisol hormone achieved total range of 0.06–0.73 mg/dL, indicating low values for the vigil. In conclusion, the shift work contributes to the emergence of stress, depression, affecting the health and quality of life of vigilant and provides a change in the secretion of the cortisol hormone.

The study of perception and risk of occupational exposure to xylene, toluene and ethylbenzene by workers of furniture factories in the districts of Aveiro, Coimbra and Viseu, intends to separately evaluate the perceived risk and real risk of exposure to these chemicals in the workplace. The cross-sectional study using a questionnaire was applied in April and May of 2014 to workers of furniture factories, with a sample of 142 respondents from 28 companies. The results of this study show that 55 % use the suction booths without proper maintenance. The ambient air samples were collected between July and November 2014 and held 108 crops of air for the determination of toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene. The results of measurements of concentrations of COV’s in different companies showed that the arithmetic mean of certain concentrations was 51 ppm for toluene, ethylbenzene to 23 ppm and 57 ppm for xylene isomers.

This article aims to discuss health promoting games as part of the strategy of the organization, models of safety culture levels and a proposal for a new approach There are several methods enabling organizational development. One of them can be incorporating workplace health promotion into organizational philosophy and methodology. Health of the employees can be perceived as a cost-effective investment, and modern interventions targeting employee health are very often connected with the application of IT. Moreover, strategic games are gaining popularity as activities used to enhance the effects of organizational activities aimed at human resources development.

In order to study environmental contamination by cytostatic drugs in a Portuguese hospital two wipe sampling campaigns were conducted in 2010 (12 samples) and 2015 (44 samples). Platinum containing drugs and fluorouracil were chosen because both were administered in high amounts. The detection limit was 0.01 pg/cm2 for platinum and 0.1 pg/cm2 for fluorouracil. The detected contamination on specific locations in the pharmacy and in the day hospital was higher in 2010. More detailed sampling in 2015 confirmed that optimization of working procedures and introduction of closed transfer system resulted in lower contamination by platinum drugs and fluorouracil. But there is still a need for continuing those processes.