FOUR APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF AGEING IN INDUSTRY

Accurate reporting of work-related conditions is necessary to monitor workplace health and safety, and to identify the interventions that are most needed. Reporting systems may be designed primarily for external agencies (OSHA or workers' compensation) or for the employer's own use. Under-reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses is common due to a variety of causes and influences. Based on previous reports, the authors were especially interested in the role of safety incentive programmes on under-reporting. Safety incentive programmes typically reward supervisors and employees for reducing workplace injury rates, and thus may unintentionally inhibit proper reporting. The authors describe a case study of several industrial facilities in order to illustrate the extent of under-reporting and the reasons for its occurrence. A questionnaire and interview survey was administered to 110 workers performing similar tasks and several managers, health, and safety personnel at each of three industrial facilities. Although less than 5% of workers had officially reported a work-related injury or illness during the past year, over 85% experienced work-related symptoms, 50% had persistent work-related problems, and 30% reported either lost time from work or work restrictions because of their ailment. Workers described several reasons for not reporting their injuries, including fear of reprisal, a belief that pain was an ordinary consequence of work activity or ageing, lack of management responsiveness after prior reports, and a desire not to lose their usual job. Interviews with management representatives revealed administrative and other barriers to reporting, stemming from their desire to attain a goal of no reported injuries, and misconceptions about requirements for recordability. The corporate and facility safety incentives appeared to have an indirect, but significant negative influence on the proper reporting of workplace injuries by workers. A variety of influences may contribute to under-reporting; because of under-reporting, worker surveys and symptom reports may provide more valuable and timely information on risks than recordable injury logs. Safety incentive programmes should be carefully designed to ensure that they provide a stimulus for safety-related changes, and to discourage under-reporting. A case-control study of similar establishments, or data before and after instituting safety incentives, would be required to more clearly establish the role of these programmes in under-reporting.     

Sustainable MSD prevention: Management for continuous improvement between prevention and production. Ergonomic intervention in two assembly line companies

To increase output and meet customers' needs, companies have turned to the development of production management systems: Kaizen, one piece flow, Kanban, etc. The aim of such systems is to accelerate decisions, react to environmental issues and manage various productions. In the main, this type of management system has led to the continuous improvement of production performance. Consequently, such production management systems can have unexpected negative effects on operators' health and safety. Conversely, regulation and control systems focusing on work-related risks have obliged firms to implement health and safety management systems such as OHSAS 18001. The purpose of this type of system, also based on continuous improvement, is to reduce risks, facilitate work-related activities and identify solutions in terms of equipment and tools. However, the prevention actions introduced through health and safety systems often result in other unexpected and unwanted effects on production. This paper shows how companies can improve the way they are run by taking into account both types of management system.     

Fifty years of driving safety research

OBJECTIVE: This brief review covers the 50 years of driving-related research published in Human Factors, its contribution to driving safety, and emerging challenges. BACKGROUND: Many factors affect driving safety, making it difficult to assess the impact of specific factors such as driver age, cell phone distractions, or collision warnings. METHOD: The author considers the research themes associated with the approximately 270 articles on driving published in Human Factors in the past 50 years. RESULTS: To a large extent, current and past research has explored similar themes and concepts. Many articles published in the first 25 years focused on issues such as driver impairment, individual differences, and perceptual limits. Articles published in the past 25 years address similar issues but also point toward vehicle technology that can exacerbate or mitigate the negative effect of these issues. Conceptual and computational models have played an important role in this research. CONCLUSION: Improved crash-worthiness has contributed to substantial improvements in driving safety over the past 50 years, but future improvements will depend on enhancing driver performance and perhaps, more important, improving driver behavior. Developing models to guide this research will become more challenging as new technology enters the vehicle and shifts the focus from driver performance to driver behavior. APPLICATION: Over the past 50 years, Human Factors has accumulated a large base of driving-related research that remains relevant for many of today's design and policy concerns.     

News recommender system: a review of recent progress,challenges, and opportunities

Nowadays, more and more news readers read news online where they have access to millions of news articles from multiple sources. In order to help users find the right and relevant content, news recommender systems (NRS) are developed to relieve the information overload problem and suggest news items that might be of interest for the news readers. In this paper, we highlight the major challenges faced by the NRS and identify the possible solutions from the state-of-the-art. Our discussion is divided into two parts. In the first part, we present an overview of the recommendation solutions, datasets, evaluation criteria beyond accuracy and recommendation platforms being used in the NRS. We also talk about two popular classes of models that have been successfully used in recent years. In the second part, we focus on the deep neural networks as solutions to build the NRS. Different from previous surveys, we study the effects of news recommendations on user behaviors and try to suggest possible remedies to mitigate those effects. By providing the state-of-the-art knowledge, this survey can help researchers and professional practitioners have a better understanding of the recent developments in news recommendation algorithms. In addition, this survey sheds light on the potential new directions.

     

The synergic role of sociotechnical and personal characteristics on work injuries in mines

Occupational injuries in mines are attributed to many factors. In this study, an attempt was made to identify the various factors related to work injuries in mines and to estimate their effects on work injuries to mine workers. An accident path model was developed to estimate the pattern and strength of relationships amongst the personal and sociotechnical variables in accident/injury occurrences. The input data for the model were the correlation matrix of 18 variables, which were collected from the case study mines. The case study results showed that there are sequential interactions amongst the sociotechnical and personal factors leading to accidents/injuries in mines. Amongst the latent endogenous constructs, job dissatisfaction and safe work behaviour show a significant positive and negative direct relationship with work injury, respectively. However, the construct safety environment has a significant negative indirect relationship with work injury. The safety environment is negatively affected by work hazards and positively affected by social support. The safety environment also shows a significant negative relationship with job stress and job dissatisfaction. However, negative personality has no significant direct or indirect effect on work injury, but it has a significant negative relationship with safe work behaviour. The endogenous construct negative personality is positively influenced by job stress and negatively influenced by social support.     

The synergic role of sociotechnical and personal characteristics on work injuries in mines

Occupational injuries in mines are attributed to many factors. In this study, an attempt was made to identify the various factors related to work injuries in mines and to estimate their effects on work injuries to mine workers. An accident path model was developed to estimate the pattern and strength of relationships amongst the personal and sociotechnical variables in accident/injury occurrences. The input data for the model were the correlation matrix of 18 variables, which were collected from the case study mines. The case study results showed that there are sequential interactions amongst the sociotechnical and personal factors leading to accidents/injuries in mines. Amongst the latent endogenous constructs, job dissatisfaction and safe work behaviour show a significant positive and negative direct relationship with work injury, respectively. However, the construct safety environment has a significant negative indirect relationship with work injury. The safety environment is negatively affected by work hazards and positively affected by social support. The safety environment also shows a significant negative relationship with job stress and job dissatisfaction. However, negative personality has no significant direct or indirect effect on work injury, but it has a significant negative relationship with safe work behaviour. The endogenous construct negative personality is positively influenced by job stress and negatively influenced by social support.     

Multilayer perceptrons and radial basis function neural network methods for the solution of differential equations: A survey

Since neural networks have universal approximation capabilities, therefore it is possible to postulate them as solutions for given differential equations that define unsupervised errors. In this paper, we present a wide survey and classification of different Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) neural network techniques, which are used for solving differential equations of various kinds. Our main purpose is to provide a synthesis of the published research works in this area and stimulate further research interest and effort in the identified topics. Here, we describe the crux of various research articles published by numerous researchers, mostly within the last 10 years to get a better knowledge about the present scenario.     

Studying gender and injuries: a comparative analysis of the literatures on women's injuries in sport and work

This article provides a review and analysis of the literatures on the gendering of injuries in sport and in work. It argues that, while research on women's work-related injuries has considered the interaction of biological and social bases of risk, research on women's injuries in sport has concentrated to a greater extent on biological risk factors alone. The difference in emphasis between these two literatures has, in turn, provoked contrasting responses to these sets of research. While bringing women into the discussion of work-related injuries is seen as an advance, the profiling of women's sport-related injuries has been viewed with alarm by critics, who see this as a return to historical notions of women's frailty. The analysis suggests that contrasts between these bodies of research derive from differences in the social organisation of sport and work and the broader literatures on health and safety in each setting. The article highlights the importance of conceptualisations of gender in research agenda devoted to understanding health-related concerns. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: The analysis presented here has important relevance to ergonomics because of the need to better understand how gender is implicated in ergonomics research and practice.     

The effect of email invitation elements on response rate in a web survey within an online community

In the research of online communities and web survey methodology little is known about how elements in email invitations to list-based web surveys can be used to obtain higher response rates. In the present work, we investigated whether making authority, plea for help, and sense of community salient in email invitations determines the response of survey participants. Drawing from both survey methodology and recent research on online communities, this study also tested a hypothesis on the relationship between activity in an online community and survey response. Using a full-factorial experiment based on a simple random sample of 2500 members from the largest online health community in Slovenia, the results support only the hypothesis that plea for help is an effective response-inducing element in email invitations. Furthermore, the results support the hypotheses that online community activity, related to the frequency of visits and number of posts to an online community, are positively associated with response in list-based web survey. Since this study also shows that combining more than one element in email invitations does not necessary improve response rates, web survey research and practice may benefit from future research on this topic.     

Driver information system: a combination of augmented reality,deep learning and vehicular Ad-hoc networks

Improving traffic safety is one of the important goals of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). In vehicle-based safety systems, it is more desirable to prevent an accident than to reduce severity of injuries. Critical traffic problems such as accidents and traffic congestion require the development of new transportation systems. Research in perceptual and human factors assessment is needed for relevant and correct display of this information for maximal road traffic safety as well as optimal driver comfort. One of the solutions to prevent accidents is to provide information on the surrounding environment of the driver. Augmented Reality Head-Up Display (AR-HUD) can facilitate a new form of dialogue between the vehicle and the driver; and enhance ITS by superimposing surrounding traffic information on the users view and keep drivers view on roads. In this paper, we propose a fast deep-learning-based object detection approaches for identifying and recognizing road obstacles types, as well as interpreting and predicting complex traffic situations. A single convolutional neural network predicts region of interest and class probabilities directly from full images in one evaluation. We also investigated potential costs and benefits of using dynamic conformal AR cues in improving driving safety. A new AR-HUD approach to create real-time interactive traffic animations was introduced in terms of types of obstacle, rules for placement and visibility, and projection of these on an in-vehicle display. The novelty of our approach is that both global and local context information are integrated into a unified framework to distinguish the ambiguous detection outcomes, enhance ITS by superimposing surrounding traffic information on the users view and keep drivers view on roads.     

Managing as designing: ‘opportunity knocks’ for the IS field?

In response to anxieties about our discipline's decline, this opinion piece ‘looks to the future’, arguing a strong prospectus for the IS field, based on its direct relevance to general management practice. The thesis set out is inspired by the recent upsurge in interest in ‘managing as designing’. Reformulating management as design, I argue that we have a formidable knowledge-base of tools, theories and critique relevant to any manager, not just the MIS-inclined specialist. A case study of yet another failed information system (in U.K. children's services) is presented to show just how uniquely relevant our discipline is, in the workplace of today. Other pertinent issues are explored, such as synergies with the growing vogue for evidence-based management. The paper concludes by considering implications for research, including the need for a less exclusive approach to publishing and dissemination emphasising the need to make our work more accessible to lay practitioners.     

Compensation for occupational injuries and diseases: its effect upon prevention at the workplace

Abstract

In Switzerland, as in many other industrialized countries, the nature and extent of prevention at the workplace is determined, at least partially, by known cases of compensated occupational injuries and diseases. At both the national and international levels ∥ILO conventions) injuries and diseases that fit appropriate lists and definitions are eligible for compensation. It has been found, based upon an investigation of a representative sample (965 subjects) of the working population in the French-speaking region of Switzerland, that this restrictive view does not take into account the fact that a large proportion of injuries and diseases are claimed by the victims to be caused by their job. These injuries and diseases, responsible for at least one month's absence from work, are not considered to be eligible for compensation but must be covered by the patient's own insurance. Moreover, the survey showed that workers considered the ill effects on health and safety to be a consequence less of the physical working environment than of the work organization, and that this category of risks was not recognized. Thus, in addition to the reduction of hazards by the application of industrial hygiene, an informed improvement of the workplace and the work organization was required. Consequently, laws and regulations on occupational injuries and diseases should be changed in order to emphasize the role of more appropriate preventive tools, which includes ergonomics.     

Goal programming to evaluate the profile of the most profitable insurers: an application to the Spanish insurance industry

This paper applies a multiobjective goal programming (GP) model to define the profile of the most profitable insurers by focusing on 14 firm‐decision variables and considering different scenarios resulting from the exogenous change in interest rate and GDP per capita growth variables. We consider a detailed database of Spanish non‐life insurers over the period 2003–2012 taking into account two dimensions of insurers’ results: underwriting results and investment results. A prior econometric analysis is used to find out relevant relations among the variables. Next, a GP model is formulated on the basis of the relationships obtained. The model is tested in a robust environment, allowing changes in the coefficients of the objective functions, and for several scenarios regarding crisis/noncrisis situations and changes in interest rates. We find that having the stock organizational form, being an unaffiliated single company and maintaining low levels of investment risk, leverage, and regulatory solvency are recommended for result optimization. Growth and reinsurance utilization are not advisable for optimizing the results, whereas size should be positively emphasized even more in instability periods and when interest rates increase. The results also show that the optimal level of the diversification/specialization strategy depends on economic conditions. More specialization is advisable as negative changes in interest rates increase. However, we find that the optimal values of the diversification variable are higher for the crisis scenarios compared to the corresponding noncrisis scenarios, suggesting that diversification creates value in crisis. Further sensitivity analyses show the soundness of the conclusions obtained.     

Analysing the role of a pedagogical agent in psychological and cognitive preparatory activities

There is a lack of studies that examine the role of a pedagogical agent on student development in a specific learning situation that involves psychological and cognitive preparatory activities in high school settings. We examined the effectiveness of pedagogical agent (APT) cognitive and affective feedback on learner motivation and well-being. We applied an experimental research design, involving 45 fourth-year high school students, divided in experimental and control groups (APT vs. human tutor). We performed a quantitative analysis to collect and analyse data of students using our APT. APT cognitive feedback had a positive effect on students' motivation for learning by encouraging students' proposals and initiatives and arousing students' interest in the topic. In addition, APT affective feedback fostered an appropriate emotional climate and creative environment for learning by enhancing students' curiosity, creativity and confidence for carrying out the activity, while reducing students' negative emotions such as boredom and anger. This study provided us useful insights about the affective (and cognitive) competencies that a virtual affective pedagogical agent needs to have in order to support students' mental and emotional health throughout a learning situation. Yet, further research is needed to consolidate these findings and make APT more adaptive to different learning situations.     

Acceptance of Health-Related ICT among Elderly People Living in the Community: A Systematic Review of Qualitative Evidence

There are a growing number of seniors and a growing need for health-related ICT (Information and Communication Technology) solutions to allow seniors to live independently in their own homes and communities. We need to have a better understanding of how and why seniors use or do not use health-related ICT in such settings so we can improve our solutions. In order to synthesize existing knowledge, we did a systematic literature review using Scopus and PubMed. We searched for both review articles and primary qualitative studies. Eleven review articles and 31 primary research articles were included in the study. We structured our findings using the UTAUT2 acceptance model developed by Venkatesh et al. Our findings show that seniors want health-related ICT that gives them independence, safety, and security, allows them to socialize and manage their own health, and helps them in their daily activities. They need to easily get help if they have problems using services, get tailored training, and get help during use. Lack of privacy and safety and stigma are some of the reported barriers. Health-related ICT at home is different than both consumer and institutional ICT. We need more research in order to develop a specialized and operationalized acceptance model for health-related ICT use among seniors. Our mapping to UTAUT2 is a step in this direction and suggests a possible specialization of this model.     

What do human factors and ergonomics professionals value in research publications? Re-examining the research–practice gap

The research–practice gap is of concern in human factors/ergonomics (HF/E) as there is a belief that HF/E research may not be making an impact on practice in the ‘real world’. A potential issue is what researchers and practitioners perceive as important in HF/E journal articles as a primary means of conveying research findings to practitioners. This study examined the characteristics that make scientific journal articles appeal to HF/E researchers and practitioners using a web-based survey. HF/E researchers and practitioners were more similar than expected in judgements of important attributes and the selection of articles. Both practitioners and researchers considered practical significance to be more important than theoretical significance, in direct contrast to professionals from a related discipline – psychology. Well-written articles were appreciated across disciplines. The results signal a strong interest in practical applications in HF/E, but a relative lack of focus on development of theories that should be the basis for practical applications.     

A review of medical error reporting system design considerations and a proposed cross-level systems research framework

OBJECTIVE: To review the literature on medical error reporting systems, identify gaps in the literature, and present an integrative cross-level systems model of reporting to address the gaps and to serve as a framework for understanding and guiding reporting system design and research. BACKGROUND: Medical errors are thought to be a leading cause of death among adults in the United States. However, no review exists summarizing what is known about the barriers and facilitators for successful reporting systems, and no integrated model exists to guide further research into and development of medical error reporting systems. METHOD: Relevant literature was identified using online databases; references in relevant articles were searched for additional relevant articles. RESULTS: The literature review identified components of medical error reporting systems, error reporting system design choices, barriers and incentives for reporting, and suggestions for successful reporting system design. Little theory was found to guide the published research. An integrative cross-level model of medical error reporting system design was developed and is proposed as a framework for understanding the medical error reporting literature, addressing existing limitations, and guiding future design and research. CONCLUSION: The medical error reporting research provides some guidance for designing and implementing successful reporting systems. The proposed cross-level systems model provides a way to understand this existing research. However, additional research is needed on reporting and related safety actions. The proposed model provides a framework for such future research. APPLICATION: This work can be used to guide the design, implementation, and study of medical error reporting systems.     

Perspectives on refactoring planning and practice: an empirical study

Iterative development increasingly seeks to incorporate design modification and continuous refactoring in order to maintain code quality even in highly dynamic environments. However, there does not appear to be consensus on how to do this, especially because research results seem to be inconsistent. This paper presents an empirical study based upon an industry survey of refactoring practices and attitudes. The study explored differences in attitudes about refactoring among participants who played roles in software development, and how these different attitudes affected actual practice. The study found strong agreement among all roles about the importance of refactoring, and agreement about the negative effects upon agility of deferring refactoring. Nevertheless, the survey found that roles had different perspectives on the different kinds of tasks in an agile process. Accordingly, there was no universally agreed-upon strategy for how to plan to carry out refactoring. Analysis of the survey results has raised many interesting questions suggesting the need for a considerable amount of future research.     

Drivers’ attitudes,preference, and acceptance of in-vehicle anger intervention systems and their relationships to demographic and personality characteristics

This research conducted focus group interviews and a questionnaire survey to investigate the potential demand of drivers for anger intervention systems (AISs) and explore the effects of demographic factors and personality traits on the preference and attitudes toward AISs. Results indicate that drivers prefer auditory intervention over tactile and visual interventions. Moreover, they favor emotion recording features but also have negative attitudes about accuracy and system security. In addition, age and some personality traits (i.e., types of driving anger and categories of driving anger expressions) play an important role in predicting the preference of intervention modalities or attitudes toward AISs and provide a new perspective on designing customized intervention systems. The outcome of this research provides practical implications regarding the design of in-vehicle anger intervention systems for the automotive industry to reduce drivers’ anger and improve driving safety.     

A trend analysis of ergonomic research themes in Taiwan

This paper examines the development of ergonomics in Taiwan by analysing 1404 scientific articles published by 113 permanent members of the Ergonomics Society of Taiwan (EST). Each article was classified by key words and abstract content. Each article was also coded by period of publication (1971–1992 (first period), 1993–1997 (second period), 1998–2002 (third period), 2003–2007 (fourth period), and 2008–2012 (fifth period), and against 13 topic categories. The results show that rate of publication has increased by approximately 100 articles every five years since 1993.The most popular topic was ergonomics assessment and analysis techniques in the first period, force exertion-related research in the second period, product design and evaluation in the third period, occupational safety and health in the fourth period and human–computer interface in the fifth period. Each of these is highly relevant to current contemporary issues around the world. Finally, potential areas for future ergonomics research in Taiwan are discussed.