The relationship between safety climate and recent accidents: behavioral learning and cognitive attributions

OBJECTIVE: The association between accidents and subsequent work unit safety perceptions was assessed to address cognitive and behavioral changes following accidents. BACKGROUND: Many studies attempt to predict accident rates using measures of work unit safety, but effects vary considerably. Conversely, this study examined whether recent accidents may be positively associated with work unit safety perceptions, as suggested by behavioral learning mechanisms (increases in safety investments following accidents) or cognitive mechanisms (defensive attributions regarding accident causality). METHOD: Lagged squadron-level accident experience was correlated with work unit safety perceptions obtained through a 61-question safety climate survey administered to 6,361 individuals in U.S. Navy flight squadrons. RESULTS: Positive associations between minor or intermediately severe accidents and future safety climate scores were found, although no effect was found for major accidents. CONCLUSION: We suggest that accident history should be considered when examining work unit safety perceptions because recent accidents may be associated with higher safety climate scores. We did not find that this varies systematically with accident severity, and longitudinal research on additional samples is needed to further test this possibility. APPLICATION: This research may be used to refine measurement of work unit safety and to examine impacts of accidents or safety violations on workers' cognitive processes and group behavioral changes.     

The size-weight illusion in team lifting

The purpose of these studies was to examine whether or not there is a size-weight illusion when participants lift containers as a team. In Experiment 1, teams of participants lifted a set of 16 containers that varied in mass and size and reported their perceptions of heaviness and volume. In Experiment 2, participants lifted the same containers individually. A size-weight illusion was demonstrated in each experiment: Reports of perceived heaviness decreased substantially as the volumes of the containers increased for both styles of lifting. However, both the magnitude of the illusion and mean perceived heaviness were greater in the team lift. Actual or potential applications of this research include the development of safe lifting guidelines for team lifting.     

Blog-enhanced ICT courses: Examining their effects on prospective teachers’ ICT competencies and perceptions

Blogs are used as a technology support tool in teaching-learning processes in contemporary schools, especially in higher education. This paper examines the effects of using blogs on prospective teachers’ perceived ICT competencies and perceptions in blog-enhanced ICT courses. Both quantitative and qualitative research approaches were used in the data collection and analysis processes. The findings indicate that most of the participants perceived blogs to be an important tool that changed their ICT perceptions in a positive way and familiarized them with ICT. The participants also perceived the use of blogs as important for the acquisition of ICT competencies.     

Prevention of musculoskeletal injuries in the workplace National approaches to safety standards: Great Britain∗

Safety standards may be based on information derived from official accident and other statistics, special returns from separate statistical exercises and specific studies. Since the Health and Safety At Work Act (HSAWA) 1974, there have been major changes in national accident reporting systems. These changes are noted, together with their implications, particularly for purposes of comparison and continuity. Some recent manual handling and lifting accident statistics are presented. Approaches to setting national standards, with particular reference to the prevention of manual handling and lifting accidents, are discussed. The work of the Health and Safety Executive's Accident Prevention Advisory Unit (APAU) is also mentioned.     

无线异构网在油气生产物联网的应用

油气生产物联网（A11）系统是《中国石油＂十二五＂信息技术总体规划》的重要建设项目,分为三个子系统：生产数据采集与控制子系统、数据传输子系统、现场监控与管理子系统。本文主要介绍一种由无线网桥＋LTE230无线异构网络构建的数据传输子系统应用方案,该方案既利用了230MHz频段LTE系统的信号传播距离远、稳定性高、绕射能力强和广覆盖的特点,同时发挥了网桥点到点通信灵活、低成本和高传输速率的优势,可以完全满足福山油田油气生产物联网对生产数据、控制数据和视频图像实时传输的需求。     

基于OpenGVS的油田油气集输过程可视化仿真

借助Visual C＋＋编程环境、利用OpenGVS函数库并使用实时三维建模软件MultiGen Creator,研究了三维对象的模型优化方法、基于OpenGVS的屏幕拾取、纹理映射和碰撞检测等特殊效果的生成技术。建立了脱水站、中转站、污水站、注水站等模型,实现了油田油气集输过程的可视化仿真。通过该系统可以从任意距离和角度观察油田油气集输的各个环节,了解生产设备的内部构造,观察各种动态过程。效果逼真,交互速度快。     

OpenCOPI: middleware integration for Ubiquitous Computing

In this paper, we present OpenCOPI (Open COntext Platform Integration), a Service-Oriented Architecture-based middleware platform that supports the integration of services provided by distinct sources, ranging from services offered by simple systems to more complex services provided by context-provision middleware. OpenCOPI offers selection and composition mechanisms to, respectively, select and compose services provided by different sources, considering applications of both Quality of Service and Quality of Context requirements. It also offers an adaptation mechanism that enables to adapt the application execution due to service failures, service quality fluctuation and user mobility. OpenCOPI allows the definition of applications in a higher abstraction level by the specification of a semantic workflow that contains abstract activities. This paper illustrates the use of OpenCOPI in an application from the Gas & Oil Industry and it also shows the evaluation of the main mechanisms of OpenCOPI: the service selection, composition, adaptation and workflow execution.     

Fault-tree models of accident scenarios of RoPax vessels

Ro-Ro vessels for cargo and passengers (RoPax) are a relatively new concept that has proven to be popular in the Mediterranean region and is becoming more widespread in Northern Europe. Due to its design characteristics and amount of passengers, although less than a regular passenger liner, accidents with RoPax vessels have far reaching consequences both for economical and for human life. The objective of this paper is to identify hazards related to casualties of RoPax vessels. The terminal casualty events chosen are related to accident and incident statistics for this type of vessel. This paper focuses on the identification of the basic events that can lead to an accident and the performance requirements. The hazard identification is carried out as the first step of a Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) and the modelling of the relation between the relevant events is made using Fault Tree Analysis (FTA). The conclusions of this study are recommendations to the later steps of FSA rather than for decision making (Step 5 of FSA). These recommendations will be focused on the possible design shortcomings identified during the analysis by fault trees throughout cut sets. Also the role that human factors have is analysed through a sensitivity analysis where it is shown that their influence is higher for groundings and collisions where an increase of the initial probability leads to the change of almost 90% of the accident occurrence.     

Evaluating knowledge management failure factors using intuitionistic fuzzy FMEA approach

The twenty-first century organizations are characterized by an emphasis on knowledge and information. Today’s organizations also require the acquisition, management, and exploitation of knowledge and information in order to improve their own performance. In the current economy, the foundations of organizational competitiveness have turned former tangible and intangible resources into knowledge and the focus of information systems has also changed from information management to knowledge management. Besides, the most important step in the implementation of knowledge management is to examine the significant factors in this regard and to identify the causes of failure. Therefore, the present study evaluated knowledge management failure factors in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment as a case study in Khuzestan Oil and Gas Company. For this purpose, a series of failure factors affecting knowledge management in organizations were identified based on a review of the related literature and similar studies. Then, 16 failure factors in the implementation of knowledge management in the given organization were determined on the basis of interviews with company experts. According to the specified factors as well as the integration of multiple criteria decision-making techniques in an intuitionistic fuzzy environment, knowledge management failure factors in Khuzestan Oil and Gas Company were investigated. The results indicated that lack of management commitment and leadership was the most important factor affecting the failure of knowledge management in the given company.     

Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50): A new tool for diagnosing occupational safety climate

Although there is a plethora of questionnaire instruments for measuring safety climate or culture, very few have proven able to present a factor structure that is consistent in different contexts, and many have a vague theoretical grounding. The Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) was developed by a team of Nordic occupational safety researchers based on organizational and safety climate theory, psychological theory, previous empirical research, empirical results acquired through international studies, and a continuous development process. Safety climate is defined as workgroup members’ shared perceptions of management and workgroup safety related policies, procedures and practices. NOSACQ-50 consists of 50 items across seven dimensions, i.e. shared perceptions of: 1) management safety priority, commitment and competence; 2) management safety empowerment; and 3) management safety justice; as well as shared perceptions of 4) workers’ safety commitment; 5) workers’ safety priority and risk non-acceptance; 6) safety communication, learning, and trust in co-workers’ safety competence; and 7) workers’ trust in the efficacy of safety systems. Initial versions of the instrument were tested for validity and reliability in four separate Nordic studies using native language versions in each respective Nordic country. NOSACQ-50 was found to be a reliable instrument for measuring safety climate, and valid for predicting safety motivation, perceived safety level, and self-rated safety behavior. The validity of NOSACQ-50 was further confirmed by its ability to distinguish between organizational units through detecting significant differences in safety climate.

Relevance to industry

NOSACQ-50 will enable comparative studies of safety climate between and within companies, industries and countries. It is suitable for research purposes as well as for practical use in evaluating safety climate status, as a diagnostic tool, and in evaluating the effect of safety climate interventions.     

Industry 4.0 and the current status as well as future prospects on logistics

Industry 4.0, referred to as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, also known as “smart manufacturing”, “industrial internet” or “integrated industry”, is currently a much-discussed topic that supposedly has the potential to affect entire industries by transforming the way goods are designed, manufactured, delivered and payed. This paper seeks to discuss the opportunities of Industry 4.0 in the context of logistics management, since implications are expected in this field. The authors pursue the goal of shedding light on the young and mostly undiscovered topic of Industry 4.0 in the context of logistics management, thus following a conceptual research approach. At first, a logistics-oriented Industry 4.0 application model as well as the core components of Industry 4.0 are presented. Different logistics scenarios illustrate potential implications in a practice-oriented manner and are discussed with industrial experts. The studies reveal opportunities in terms of decentralisation, self-regulation and efficiency. Moreover, it becomes apparent that the concept of Industry 4.0 still lacks a clear understanding and is not fully established in practice yet. The investigations demonstrate potential Industry 4.0 implications in the context of Just-in-Time/Just-in-Sequence and cross-company Kanban systems in a precise manner. Practitioners could use the described scenarios as a reference to foster their own Industry 4.0 initiatives, with respect to logistics management.     

Temporal Presence Variation in Immersive Computer Games

Increasingly, the sophistication of modern computer-gaming systems is becoming comparable to that of immersive, virtual reality (VR) environments, and the popular VR research topic of “presence” is now being explored in the context of computer games. The explosion of popularity of networked gameplay and the movement of computing infrastructure on to the Internet and the cloud mean that technical anomalies such as network latency, dropouts, and so on, may increasingly disrupt players' experience of presence. In this article, a study of these “Breaks in Presence” (BIPs), which examines a networked, first-person-shooter game in an immersive virtual environment, is presented. Our study investigates how participants react to BIPs in terms of their impact on participants' levels of presence and in terms of the time needed for participants to recover from BIPs. Four distinct BIP types, which were selected because of their practical significance and because of their relevance to an established model for presence, were tested. The effects of two contrasting game modes (a low-involvement “navigation game” and a high-involvement “combat game”) on the perceptions of these BIPs are analyzed. As part of our experimental procedure a new video-cued-recall slider technique is introduced.

Our study shows that participants experience different levels of impact and recovery from BIPs and that the perceptions of impact of BIPs depend on the overall sense of presence as well as being task dependent. The article shows that recovery time seems to be a well-defined concept and that an overall measure of recovery time exhibits believable correlations with overall presence, with the overall number of BIPs (including “spontaneous” BIPs) and with user characteristics. The article also shows that the slider data for recovery time from BIPs provide evidence for a smooth variation of presence during an immersive experience. It is found that perceptions of impact and recovery time behave differently and that, intriguingly, recovery time appears to be much more independent of game mode than impact is. Evidence is found of strong carry-over effects in participants' recollections of the impact of BIPs from one game experience to the next is found. Results from our slider technique appear to show general agreement with results from a postexperiment questionnaire, and our study motivates the usefulness of our slider technique for future experiments.     

Intergroup contact in computer-mediated communication: The interplay of a stereotype-disconfirming behavior and a lasting group identity on reducing prejudiced perceptions

The present study investigated the impact of online intergroup contact on prejudiced and stereotyped perceptions toward an outgroup. Informed by research on contact in computer-mediated communication, a model of contact in which individual outgroup members displayed a stereotype-disconfirming (vs confirming) behavior in virtual teams made up of ingroup members was tested. Moreover, this hypothesized model of contact was examined across two visual conditions of group identification: one in which a pre-existing ethnic category (i.e, lasting membership) was made salient, and one without salient group identities. Results showed that when participants were conscious of their lasting identities, the enacted disconfirming behavior reduced prejudiced perceptions by the mediation of perceived attraction towards the individual outgroup member. Conversely, stereotyped perceptions were not affected by this behavior. These findings suggest that the generalization of the contact effect in CMC is more likely to occur in attitudinal variables than in cognitive ones, and as long as participants are aware of intergroup memberships when participating in short online interactions.     

The persuasiveness of synthetic speech versus human speech

Is computer-synthesized speech as persuasive as the human voice when presenting an argument? After completing an attitude pretest, 193 participants were randomly assigned to listen to a persuasive appeal under three conditions: a high-quality synthesized speech system (DECtalk Express), a low-quality synthesized speech system (Monologue), and a tape recording of a human voice. Following the appeal, participants completed a posttest attitude survey and a series of questionnaires designed to assess perceptions of speech qualities, perceptions of the speaker, and perceptions of the message. The human voice was generally perceived more favorably than the computer-synthesized voice, and the speaker was perceived more favorably when the voice was a human voice than when it was computer synthesized. There was, however, no evidence that computerized speech, as compared with the human voice, affected persuasion or perceptions of the message. Actual or potential applications of this research include issues that should be considered when designing synthetic speech systems.     

Emerging ICT concepts for smart,safe and sustainable industrial systems

This editorial introduces the special issue on Emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) concepts for smart, safe and sustainable industrial systems in the Elsevier journal Computers in Industry. The 13 papers in this special issue were selected because of their high quality and also because they propose emerging ICT solutions that address at least one of the three dimensions we suggest as basic requirements to design usable future Industrial Systems that must be safe, smart and sustainable. Previous global discussions about the state of the art with regard to the topic of this special issue are provided, as well as exploratory guidelines for future research in this area.     

Powered domestic lawnmowers: design for safety

The paper describes a detailed accident investigation carried out by the Institute for Consumer Ergonomics for the Consumer Safety Unit at the Department of Trade. As such it serves to illustrate the application of two specific research techniques (i) analysis of product related accident data, and (ii) ergonomics evaluation of current models - and shows how these may be used to help in defining standards and criteria for the design of safer products. The study identified lawnmower features and activities associated with accidents recorded by the Home Accident Surveillance System. Ergonomics appraisal by expert assessment and user trials highlighted hazards associated with currently available powered lawnmowers. Performance criteria for safer design of selected features were developed with the aim of overcoming these hazards. At the end of the study liaison was sought with manufacturers to discuss how the results from the work could be used to effect.     

Height effects in real and virtual environments

The study compared human perceptions of height, danger, and anxiety, as well as skin conductance and heart rate responses and postural instability effects, in real and virtual height environments. The 24 participants (12 men, 12 women), whose average age was 23.6 years, performed "lean-over-the-railing" and standing tasks on real and comparable virtual balconies, using a surround-screen virtual reality (SSVR) system. The results indicate that the virtual display of elevation provided realistic perceptual experience and induced some physiological responses and postural instability effects comparable to those found in a real environment. It appears that a simulation of elevated work environment in a SSVR system, although with reduced visual fidelity, is a valid tool for safety research. Potential applications of this study include the design of virtual environments that will help in safe evaluation of human performance at elevation, identification of risk factors leading to fall incidents, and assessment of new fall prevention strategies.     

立胜煤矿“1·5”特别重大电气火灾事故分析及防范措施

分析了立胜煤矿"1.5"特别重大电气火灾事故的发生时间、事故类型、发生地点及事故原因,认为该次事故为火灾事故,发生在2010-01-05T12:05中间井三道暗立井内,并得出导致该次事故的直接原因:中间井三道暗立井内有一根老化、破损的非阻燃电缆短路着火;矿井主要通风机在事故发生前没有运行,没有独立通风系统,通风设施不全,违规串联通风,中间井缺乏供水系统;矿井在-240 m水平以下区域无逃生通道;井下作业人员没有佩带自救器。最后提出了预防该类事故发生的措施:(1)严禁使用非阻燃电缆和老化、破损电缆;(2)严禁使用明令禁止的电器开关和设备,矿井供电系统必须按规定和标准设置漏电、过流和接地保护装置,并整定和校验;(3)除掘进工作面和临时作业场所外,井下其它巷道和作业地点均应有不少于2条通达地面的步行安全通道,每一个水平到上一个水平和各个采区都必须至少有2个可与通达地面的安全出口相连的行人安全出口;(4)矿井提升设备必须具有煤安标志;(5)矿井主要通风机不得停止运行,矿井必须具有独立的通风系统,必须按《煤矿安全规程》要求设置通风设施;(6)井下必须安装供水系统;(7)井下作业人员必须佩带压缩氧自救器。     

Korean science teachers’ perceptions of the introduction of socio‐scientific issues into the science curriculum

Abstract:

This study examined Korean secondary science teachers’ perceptions of the introduction of socio‐scientific issues (SSI) into the science curriculum. The guiding research questions were (a) What are teachers’ perceptions of SSI and the place of these issues in the science curriculum? and (b) What are some factors that impede or facilitate addressing SSI in Korean secondary classrooms? The factors that were explored included teachers’ perceptions of the necessity of addressing SSI, teachers’ personal science‐teaching efficacy (PSTE) beliefs regarding SSI, and other relevant situational factors. The 86 participants (65% female) completed a questionnaire comprising Likert‐type and open‐ended questions. Next, follow‐up, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a random sample of 12 participants. Results indicated that participants perceived a need to address SSI positively. However, only a minority dealt with such issues in their classrooms and then only sporadically. Participants had low PSTE beliefs related to teaching about SSI. They perceived the lack of instructional time and the unavailability of relevant materials as the primary obstacles that hindered the teaching of SSI. It is argued that the culture of pre‐college science education in Korea, which is still largely dominated by a preoccupation with preparing students for admission to institutions of higher education, subsumes those obstacles identified and experienced by the participant teachers.     

应用于安全相关领域的CANopen Safety协议

CANopen协议是一种基于CAN（Controllor Area Network）总线的高层协议,在工业领域已有了极其广泛的应用。近年来,针对在安全相关领域的应用,CANopen协议加入了安全的特性,推出了基于CANopen协议的CANopen Safety协议。首先介绍了CANopen协议,在讨论了CAN和CANopen协议的失效机制的基础上,进而分析了CANopen Safety协议在安全相关方面的新特性。