Best practices for preventing musculoskeletal disorders in masonry: stakeholder perspectives

Brick masons and mason tenders report a high prevalence of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), many of which can be prevented with changes in materials, work equipment or work practices. To explore the use of "best practices" in the masonry industry, NIOSH organized a 2-day meeting of masonry stakeholders. Attendees included 30 industry representatives, 5 health and safety researchers, 4 health/safety specialists, 2 ergonomic consultants, and 2 representatives of state workers' compensation programs. Small groups discussed ergonomic interventions currently utilized in the masonry industry, including factors affecting intervention implementation and ways to promote diffusion of interventions. Meeting participants also identified various barriers to intervention implementation, including business considerations, quality concerns, design issues, supply problems, jobsite conditions and management practices that can slow or limit intervention diffusion. To be successful, future diffusion efforts must not only raise awareness of available solutions but also address these practical concerns.     

Processes, barriers, and outcomes described by ergonomics consultants in preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders

Despite the importance of reducing work-related musculoskeletal disorders, there appears to have been little evaluation of routine ergonomics consultancy interventions aimed at reducing risks leading to these conditions. In many instances, the effectiveness of advice depends on organisations accepting and implementing measures recommended, involving changes of both individual and collective behaviour. Behaviour change theory, developed elsewhere, suggests that if change is to take place, recipients need to hold positive attitudes and beliefs relating to the desirable behaviour. To investigate the extent to which this is accommodated by current ergonomics consultancy practices, 14 ergonomics consultants were interviewed to explore the consultancy process from which recommendations are developed, exploring the factors that are assessed by consultants, perceived barriers to promoting change, and the extent to which evaluation of outcomes takes place. Consultants' recommendations generally focused on physical aspects of the work environment and did not take explicit account of employees' knowledge or attitudes. Little evaluation of outcomes was conducted by the consultants interviewed. Implications of these findings for improving the efficacy of interventions to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders within organisations are discussed.     

Change in pattern of absenteeism as a result of workplace intervention for personnel support

The aim was to investigate whether a preventive intervention carried out in a predominantly female workplace, that of hospital cleaners (consisting of a group of 97 women), had any effect on patterns of absenteeism. As a background, a model for analysing complex patterns of absenteeism, including sickness absences, was also developed. A further aim was to study the interactions between different forms of absenteeism. Comparison was made with a reference group consisting of employees in the same job category who only received the customary personnel support. For individuals in the intervention group who were < 42 years of age, total absence due to sickness decreased. In a multiple regression analysis, the contribution from the intervention to the decrease was significant at the 5% level. This change was particularly obvious in those who had a previous history of high absence due to sickness. No clear relationship was shown between short-term absenteeism and the interventions applied. For those who were > 42 years, short-term absence decreased for those who had been in the same jobs for a long time. The combination of increased age and experience showed a tendency to enhance this decline in short-term absenteeism due to sickness. For those > 42 years, and who at the same time have a previous history of high absenteeism, long-term absenteeism due to sickness seemed to be increasing. Increased experience tended to reduce this increase in long-term sickness absence. This combination of different effects possibly indicated the presence of a process of selection which determined who remained in the job as opposed to those who did not. An important conclusion is that different forms of absenteeism need to be looked at in parallel, and at the same time multivariate statistical analysis needs to be carried out to determine the different interactions between the factors.     

Guidelines for occupational musculoskeletal load as a basis for intervention: a critical review

Rationalization efforts in industry, both in the Scientific Management tradition and also based on recent rationalization theories, have as one of their main aims to increase the utilization of workers. Clearly, there is a limit to the amount of physical work each employee can perform without developing musculoskeletal disorders. Such limits are generally set by guidelines for acceptable work load. This paper reviews the physical work load concept, the historical development of guidelines, and current guidelines as found in ergonomics textbooks. The focus is on the change in the aim of the guidelines over time: increased productivity, reduced fatigue and finally improved musculoskeletal health. Current guidelines for physical work load mostly emphazise a reduction in the level of work load, while there are few guidelines that consider the repetitiveness and duration of work load. As the guidelines in general only consider one exposure variable, this is a particular problem in rationalization where all three exposure dimensions may be changed simultaneously. Present guidelines are mainly based on laboratory studies aiming to eliminate short-term physiological or psychological responses. These guidelines are clearly inadequate and may be misleading in view of recent research regarding the relationship between physical work load exposure and the development of musculoskeletal complaints at the work place.     

Ergonomic intervention research for improved musculoskeletal health: A critical review

This literature review of ergonomic intervention studies aims to identify effective ergonomic interventions for improved musculoskeletal health in the workplace and to make recommendations for quality criteria in ergonomic intervention research. To avoid ambiguity in terminology a list of definitions of the ergonomic terms used in this paper is provided in an appendix. Models were developed for use in the classification of ergonomic intervention research and to illustrate the problems in interpreting ergonomic intervention data. The relevant literature was identified by a two-step process. First the relevant literature was identified by inclusion criteria, then, quality criteria were applied to identify studies of good quality for effective intervention. These appear to be firstly “organizational culture” and secondly modifier interventions, the former using multiple interventions with high stakeholder commitment to reduce identified risk factors, and the latter especially focusing workers at risk and using measures which actively involve the individual. A list of recommendations is provided.     

Prevention of musculoskeletal disorders at work: Validation and reliability in a multicenter intervention study

During the years 1986–1989 The Finnish Work Environment Fund initiated a multicenter, intervention study (programme) to prevent musculoskeletal disorders at work. The programme consisted of four different projects comprising methodological, epidemiological, and interventive themes. The main results were as follows: (1) More than half of the occupational physiotherapists and physicians involved in the project felt that they did not have adequate training for testing the performance capacity of the musculoskeletal system. Several of the most commonly used musculoskeletal tests had either poor validity in predicting future musculoskeletal troubles or had poor reliability. (2) A controlled intervention study showed that active training of neck-shoulder muscles can prevent musculoskeletal troubles, even more than ergonomic actions. (3) It is possible to reduce sick-leave due to low-back disorders by intervention measures directed toward both the work (environment, tools) and the workers (working methods, positive attitude to work, preparedness to keep fit). (4) The identification of ergonomic hazards with the help of teamwork proved to be feasible. The practical improvements, however, were difficult to implement in the prevailing conditions. Some of the improvements increased the work load and the stress of the workers. This aspect needs further consideration.     

Reading from paper versus screens: a critical review of the empirical literature

The advent of widespread computer use in general and increasing developments in the domain of hypertext in particular have increased awareness of the issue of reading electronic text. To date the literature has been dominated by reference to work on overcoming speed deficits resulting from poor image quality but an emerging literature reveals a more complex set of variables at work. The present review considers the differences between the media in terms of outcomes and processes of reading and concludes that single variable explanations are insufficient to capture the range of issues involved in reading from screens.     

Occupational musculoskeletal and mental health: Significance of rationalization and opportunities to create sustainable production systems – A systematic review

This literature review aims to identify occupational musculoskeletal and mental health effects of production system rationalization as well as organizational-level measures that may improve health outcome (“modifiers” in this review). A short review of the effect of ergonomic interventions is included as background and rationalization is discussed as a theoretical concept. Indicator variables for occupational musculoskeletal and mental health and related risk factors are presented. Variables with a generalized format were allowed in the literature searches (e.g., job satisfaction and absenteeism were accepted as risk factor and health indicator, respectively), suitable for the research fields of work sociology, organization science, human resource management (HRM) and economics research.One hundred and sixty-two studies of rationalization effects on health and risk factors and 72 organization-level modifier results were accepted into the final database. Entries were sorted by rationalization strategy and work life sector, and trends in outcome (positive, mixed, no effect, or negative effect on health and risk factors) were determined.Rationalizations have a dominant negative effect on health and risk factors (57% negative, 19% positive); the most negative effects were found for downsizing and restructuring rationalizations in general (71 studies negative, 13 positive) and for the health care sector in particular (36 studies negative, 2 positive). The rationalization strategy High Performance Work System (HPWS) was associated with the highest fraction positive outcome studies (6 of 10 studies). Other rationalization strategies (lean practices, parallel vs. serial production and mechanization level) reported intermediate results, in part dependent on work life sector, but also on the year when studies were carried out. Worker participation, resonant management style, information, support, group autonomy and procedural justice were modifiers with favourable influence on outcome.It is concluded that production system rationalization represents a pervasive work life intervention without a primary occupational health focus. It has considerable and mostly negative influence on worker health, but this can be reduced by attention to modifiers. The results create a basis for new priorities in ergonomic intervention research.     

让经济新闻的干预问题变成一剂良药

随着我国经济、政治体制改革的展开和深入,经济新闻在新闻报道中越加多了起来。无可争辩的是,经济新闻对社会的经济和建设起着不容忽视的促进作用,一些在社会上有较好反响的经济新闻能对社会责任和基本走向提出一些建设性的意见和问题,这一切已经引起了社会各界的关注,但同时在经济新闻报道中也出现了一些问题,尤其是干预问题应引起我们的重视。     

Standardization revisited: A critical literature review on standards and innovation

Effective ICT standards enable different services to work together while promoting differentiation that facilitates competition and innovation. In order to ensure that the quality of ICT standards is well developed, it is important that these standards and standardization procedures meet certain requirements. This study reviews standardization research in terms of the process of standardization, innovation, and the demand-supply perspective. It draws implications that standards will be one of the important tools for national economic growth and for unconventional strategies of businesses. The analyses, based on the demand-supply framework, finally suggest promising opportunities for potential researchers.     

Challenges and best practices in industry-academia collaborations in software engineering: A systematic literature review

Context: The global software industry and the software engineering (SE) academia are two large communities. However, unfortunately, the level of joint industry-academia collaborations in SE is still relatively very low, compared to the amount of activity in each of the two communities. It seems that the two ’camps’ show only limited interest/motivation to collaborate with one other. Many researchers and practitioners have written about the challenges, success patterns (what to do, i.e., how to collaborate) and anti-patterns (what not do do) for industry-academia collaborations.Objective: To identify (a) the challenges to avoid risks to the collaboration by being aware of the challenges, (b) the best practices to provide an inventory of practices (patterns) allowing for an informed choice of practices to use when planning and conducting collaborative projects.Method: A systematic review has been conducted. Synthesis has been done using grounded-theory based coding procedures.Results: Through thematic analysis we identified 10 challenge themes and 17 best practice themes. A key outcome was the inventory of best practices, the most common ones recommended in different contexts were to hold regular workshops and seminars with industry, assure continuous learning from industry and academic sides, ensure management engagement, the need for a champion, basing research on real-world problems, showing explicit benefits to the industry partner, be agile during the collaboration, and the co-location of the researcher on the industry side.Conclusion: Given the importance of industry-academia collaboration to conduct research of high practical relevance we provide a synthesis of challenges and best practices, which can be used by researchers and practitioners to make informed decisions on how to structure their collaborations.     

Claims about the use of software engineering practices in science: A systematic literature review

Context: Scientists have become increasingly reliant on software in order to perform research that is too time-intensive, expensive, or dangerous to perform physically. Because the results produced by the software drive important decisions, the software must be correct and developed efficiently. Various software engineering practices have been shown to increase correctness and efficiency in the development of traditional software. It is unclear whether these observations will hold in a scientific context.Objective: This paper evaluates claims from software engineers and scientific software developers about 12 different software engineering practices and their use in developing scientific software.Method: We performed a systematic literature review examining claims about how scientists develop software. Of the 189 papers originally identified, 43 are included in the literature review. These 43 papers contain 33 different claims about 12 software engineering practices.Results: The majority of the claims indicated that software engineering practices are useful for scientific software development. Every claim was supported by evidence (i.e. personal experience, interview/survey, or case study) with slightly over half supported by multiple forms of evidence. For those claims supported by only one type of evidence, interviews/surveys were the most common. The claims that received the most support were: “The effectiveness of the testing practices currently used by scientific software developers is limited” and “Version control software is necessary for research groups with more than one developer.” Additionally, many scientific software developers have unconsciously adopted an agile-like development methodology.Conclusion: Use of software engineering practices could increase the correctness of scientific software and the efficiency of its development. While there is still potential for increased use of these practices, scientific software developers have begun to embrace software engineering practices to improve their software. Additionally, software engineering practices still need to be tailored to better fit the needs of scientific software development.     

Text summarisation in progress: a literature review

This paper contains a large literature review in the research field of Text Summarisation (TS) based on Human Language Technologies (HLT). TS helps users manage the vast amount of information available, by condensing documents’ content and extracting the most relevant facts or topics included in them. The rapid development of emerging technologies poses new challenges to this research field, which still need to be solved. Therefore, it is essential to analyse its progress over the years, and provide an overview of the past, present and future directions, highlighting the main advances achieved and outlining remaining limitations. With this purpose, several important aspects are addressed within the scope of this survey. On the one hand, the paper aims at giving a general perspective on the state-of-the-art, describing the main concepts, as well as different summarisation approaches, and relevant international forums. Furthermore, it is important to stress upon the fact that the birth of new requirements and scenarios has led to new types of summaries with specific purposes (e.g. sentiment-based summaries), and novel domains within which TS has proven to be also suitable for (e.g. blogs). In addition, TS is successfully combined with a number of intelligent systems based on HLT (e.g. information retrieval, question answering, and text classification). On the other hand, a deep study of the evaluation of summaries is also conducted in this paper, where the existing methodologies and systems are explained, as well as new research that has emerged concerning the automatic evaluation of summaries’ quality. Finally, some thoughts about TS in general and its future will encourage the reader to think of novel approaches, applications and lines to conduct research in the next years. The analysis of these issues allows the reader to have a wide and useful background on the main important aspects of this research field.     

Interactive whiteboards: boon or bandwagon? A critical review of the literature

Abstract This article reviews the literature concerning the introduction of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in educational settings. It identifies common themes to emerge from a burgeoning and diverse literature, which includes reports and summaries available on the Internet. Although the literature reviewed is overwhelmingly positive about the impact and the potential of IWBs, it is primarily based on the views of teachers and pupils. There is insufficient evidence to identify the actual impact of such technologies upon learning either in terms of classroom interaction or upon attainment and achievement. This article examines this issue in light of varying conceptions of interactivity and research into the effects of learning with verbal and visual information.     

Investigating voice in action teams: a critical review

Cognition, Technology & Work - Team communication is considered a key factor for team performance. Importantly, voicing concerns and suggestions regarding work-related topics—also termed...     

Social media prediction: a literature review

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Social Media Prediction (SMP) is an emerging powerful tool attracting the attention of researchers and practitioners alike. Despite its many merits, SMP has also...     

Spreadsheet quality assurance: a literature review

Spreadsheets are very common for information processing to support decision making by both professional developers and non-technical end users. Moreover, business intelligence and artificial intelligence are increasingly popular in the industry nowadays, where spreadsheets have been used as, or integrated into, intelligent or expert systems in various application domains. However, it has been repeatedly reported that faults often exist in operational spreadsheets, which could severely compromise the quality of conclusions and decisions based on the spreadsheets. With a view to systematically examining this problem via survey of existing work, we have conducted a comprehensive literature review on the quality issues and related techniques of spreadsheets over a 35.5-year period (from January 1987 to June 2022) for target journals and a 10.5-year period (from January 2012 to June 2022) for target conferences. Among other findings, two major ones are: (a) Spreadsheet quality is best addressed throughout the whole spreadsheet life cycle, rather than just focusing on a few specific stages of the life cycle. (b) Relatively more studies focus on spreadsheet testing and debugging (related to fault detection and removal) when compared with spreadsheet specification, modeling, and design (related to development). As prevention is better than cure, more research should be performed on the early stages of the spreadsheet life cycle. Enlightened by our comprehensive review, we have identified the major research gaps as well as highlighted key research directions for future work in the area.     

视觉Transformer识别任务研究综述

Transformer模型在自然语言处理领域取得了很好的效果,同时因其能够更好地连接视觉和语言,也激发了计算机视觉界的极大兴趣。本文总结了视觉Transformer处理多种识别任务的百余种代表性方法,并对比分析了不同任务内的模型表现,在此基础上总结了每类任务模型的优点、不足以及面临的挑战。根据识别粒度的不同,分别着眼于诸如图像分类、视频分类的基于全局识别的方法,以及目标检测、视觉分割的基于局部识别的方法。考虑到现有方法在3种具体识别任务的广泛流行,总结了在人脸识别、动作识别和姿态估计中的方法。同时,也总结了可用于多种视觉任务或领域无关的通用方法的研究现状。基于Transformer的模型实现了许多端到端的方法,并不断追求准确率与计算成本的平衡。全局识别任务下的Transformer模型对补丁序列切分和标记特征表示进行了探索,局部识别任务下的Transformer模型因能够更好地捕获全局信息而取得了较好的表现。在人脸识别和动作识别方面,注意力机制减少了特征表示的误差,可以处理丰富多样的特征。Transformer可以解决姿态估计中特征错位的问题,有利于改善基于回归的方法性能,还减少了三维估计时深度映射所产生的歧义。大量探索表明视觉Transformer在识别任务中的有效性,并且在特征表示或网络结构等方面的改进有利于提升性能。     

遥感图像全色锐化的卷积神经网络方法研究进展

随着计算机科学、遥感科学和大数据科学等领域的迅速发展,基于卷积神经网络的方法在图像处理、计算机视觉等任务上发挥着越来越重要的作用。而在遥感图像全色锐化领域,卷积神经网络由于其优秀的融合效果,已得到研究学者的广泛关注并有大量的研究成果产生。尽管如此,依然有一些亟待解决的问题,例如缺乏全色锐化数据集的仿真细节描述、公平公开的训练—测试数据集、简单易懂的统一代码编写框架等。对此,本文主要从以下几方面回顾当前遥感图像全色锐化问题在卷积神经网络方面的一些进展,并针对前述问题发布相关数据集和代码编写框架。1)详细介绍7种典型的基于卷积神经网络的全色锐化方法,并在统一数据集上进行公平比较(包括与典型传统方法的比较);2)详细介绍训练—测试数据集的仿真细节,并发布相关卫星(如WorldView-3, QuickBird, GaoFen2,WorldView-2)的全色锐化训练—测试数据集;3)针对本文介绍的7种基于卷积神经网络的方法,发布基于Pytorch深度学习库的Python代码统一编写框架,便于后来初学者入门、开展研究以及公平比较;4)发布统一的全色锐化传统—深度学习方法MATLAB测试软件包,...     

Time trends in ergonomic intervention research for improved musculoskeletal health and comfort in Latin America

Studies on ergonomic intervention research aiming at improved musculoskeletal health published in Latin America in the past 20 years were reviewed. The tendencies observed over time in these studies show that interventions carried out are trying to deal with the changes occurring in the production processes in this period. Thus, more participative approaches have been used, involving different parts interested in the process. The previous transversal projects, more focused on the physical aspects of the work, are now substituted by studies including organizational and longitudinal designs. Despite this, some negative or unchanged outcomes have been obtained. Therefore, good quality intervention studies are needed to provide more generalizable data and improve our understanding on planning, implementing and sustaining effective measures for controlling work-related musculoskeletal disorders.