Exploring the relations between the physiological factors and the likelihood of accidents on construction sites

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gökhan Kazar ◽  
Semra Comu
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Mental Stress ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Physical Fatigue ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Physiological Variables ◽  
Physiological Values ◽  
Construction Accidents

PurposeConstruction work involves high-risk activities and requires intense focus and physical exertion. Accordingly, working conditions at construction sites contribute to physical fatigue and mental stress in workers, which is the primary cause of accidents. This study aims to examine the relation between construction accidents and physiological variables, indicative of physical fatigue and mental stress.Design/methodology/approachFour different real-time physiological values of the construction workers were measured including blood sugar level (BSL), electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate (HR) and skin temperature (ST). The data were collected from 21 different workers during the summer and winter seasons. Both seasonal and hourly correlation analyses were performed between the construction accidents and the four physiological variables gathered.FindingsThe analysis results demonstrate that BSL values of the workers are correlated inversely with construction accidents taking place before lunch break. In addition, except BSL a significant seasonal association between the physiological variables and construction accidents was found.Originality/valueIt is disclosed that variations in physiological risk factors at certain working periods pose a high risk for construction workers. Therefore, efficient work-cycle rests can be arranged to provide frequent but short breaks for workers to overcome such issues. Besides, an early warning system could be introduced to monitor the real-time physiological values of the workers.

Knowledge discovery of correlations between unsafe behaviors within construction accidents

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shengyu Guo ◽  
Yujia Zhao ◽  
Yuqiu Luoren ◽  
Kongzheng Liang ◽  
Bing Tang
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Discovery ◽  
Tacit Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Frequent Pattern ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Railway Construction ◽  
Unsafe Behaviors ◽  
Construction Accidents

PurposeKnowledge discovery related to unsafe behaviors promotes the performance of accident prevention in construction. Although numerous studies on accident causation models have discussed the correlations of unsafe behaviors with various factors (e.g., unsafe conditions), limited research explores correlations between unsafe behaviors within accidents. The purpose of this paper is mining strong association rules of unsafe behaviors from historical accidents to clarify this kind of tacit knowledge.Design/methodology/approachA case study was adopted as the research approach, in which accident records from building and urban railway construction in China were selected as data resources. The groups of unsafe behaviors extracted from accident records were expressed by the definitions of unsafe behaviors from safety regulations and operating procedures. Frequent Pattern (FP)-Growth algorithm was used for association rule mining, and the critical correlations between unsafe behaviors were represented by the effective strong rules.FindingsThe findings identify and distinguish correlations between unsafe behaviors within construction accidents. In building construction, workers and managers should pay attention to preventing unsafe behaviors related to personal protective equipment and machines and equipment. In urban railway construction, workers should especially avoid unsafe behaviors of inadequately dealing with environmental factors.Practical implicationsTacit knowledge is transferred to explicit knowledge as the critical correlations between unsafe behaviors within accidents are determined by the effective strong rules. Additionally, the findings provide practice guidance for safety management, to collaboratively control unsafe behaviors with strong correlations.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the body of safety knowledge in construction and provides a further understanding of how construction accidents are caused by multiple unsafe behaviors.

scholarly journals Spatio-temporal analysis of trajectories for safer construction sites

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Arslan ◽  
Christophe Cruz ◽  
Ana-Maria Roxin ◽  
Dominique Ginhac
Keyword(s):  
Safety Management ◽  
Construction Safety ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Gps Data ◽  
Construction Site ◽  
Trajectory Data ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Construction Safety Management

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to improve the safety of construction workers by understanding their behaviors on construction sites using spatio-temporal (ST) trajectories. Design/methodology/approach A review of construction safety management literature and international occupational health and safety statistics shows that the major reasons for fatalities on construction sites are mobility-related issues, such as unsafe human behaviors, difficult site conditions, and workers falling from heights and striking against or being struck by moving objects. Consequently, literature has been reviewed to find possible technological solutions to track the mobility of construction workers to reduce fatalities. This examination has suggested that location acquisition systems, such as Global Positioning System (GPS), have been widely used for real-time monitoring and tracking of workers on construction sites for hazard prevention. However, the raw data captured from GPS devices are generally available as discrete points and do not hold enough information to understand the workers’ mobility. As a solution, an application to transform raw GPS data into ST trajectories using different preprocessing algorithms is proposed for enhancing worker safety on construction sites. Findings The proposed system preprocesses raw GPS data for stay point detection, trajectory segmentation and intersection of multiple trajectories to find significant places and movements of workers on a construction site to enhance the information available to H&S managers for decision-making processes. In addition, it reduces the size of trajectory data for future analyses. Originality/value Application of location acquisition systems for construction safety management is very well addressed in the existing literature. However, a significant gap has been found: the usage of preprocessed ST trajectories is still missing in workers’ safety monitoring scenarios in the area of construction management. To address this research gap, the proposed system uses preprocessed ST trajectories to monitor workers’ movements on a construction site to identify potentially unsafe behaviors.

A back-end view to climatic adaptation

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alolote I. Amadi
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Humid Tropics ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Humid Climate ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Real ◽  
Climatic Adaptation ◽  
Technological Bias

PurposeThis study investigates the level of variance in the real time demand for bagged cement, induced in response to the climatic sequence of the humid tropics, to support best practice calls for a weather-responsive supply chain strategy.Design/methodology/approachData on the consumption of cement and site works for 100 ongoing building construction sites were gathered for a period of 12 months. The variance partitioning capabilities of the Ordinary Least Squares and Hierarchical Linear Modelling forms of regression analysis are comparatively used to evaluate the sensitivity of cement demand to the meteorological profile of wet-humid climateFindingsThe study outcome provides statistical evidence demonstrating that the meteorological profile of wet-humid climate induces a significantly high percentage of the variance in the real-time demand for bagged cement on construction sites. However, nested within this variance, are the fixed effects of the cement footprint of the building architecture inherent in the locality. Particularly, positive changes to reduce the wet trade composition of buildings or compensating changes in technological bias, are necessary to combat weather interference in the humid tropics.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are exploratory, and not for the purposes of holistically forecasting cement demand, and can therefore only form part of a more comprehensive decision support system, bespoke to the study area.Practical implicationsThe study outcome provides a back-end view to climatic adaptation in wet humid settings, making a compelling case for localized climate-risk adaptive supply chain strategies and policies geared towards sustainability in cement usage.Originality/valueThe study delineates the confounding impact of weather, distinct from local building architecture and technological bias, thus creating a methodological platform for replication and comparative productivity studies in diverse geographical areas.

APPLICATION OF REAL-TIME PRC TECHNIQUE AND REVERSE DOT-BLOT FOR DETECTION THE HIGH RISK TYPES OF HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS CAUSING CERVICAL CANCER

2017 ◽  
pp. 99-103
Author(s):  
Van Bao Thang Phan ◽  
Hoang Bach Nguyen ◽  
Van Thanh Nguyen ◽  
Thi Nhu Hoa Tran ◽  
Viet Quynh Tram Ngo
Keyword(s):  
Cervical Cancer ◽  
High Risk ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Real Time Pcr ◽  
Dot Blot ◽  
The Real ◽  
Dot Blot Assay ◽  
Hpv Types ◽  
High Risk Hpv ◽  
Reverse Dot Blot

Introduction: Infection with HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer. Determining HPV infection and the types of HPV plays an important role in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of cervicitis/cervical cancer. Aims: Determining proportion of high-risk HPV types and the occurrence of coinfection with multiple HPV types. Methods: 177 women with cervicitis or abnormal Pap smear result were enrolled in the study. Performing the real-time PCR for detecting HPV and the reverse DOT-BLOT assay for determining type of HPV in cases of positive PCR. Results: 7 types of high-risk HPV was dectected, the majority of these types were HPV type 18 (74.6%) and HPV type 16 (37.6%); the proportion of infection with only one type of HPV was 30.4% and coinfection with multiple HPV types was higher (69.6%), the coinfected cases with 2 and 3 types were dominated (32.2% and 20.3%, respectively) and the coinfected cases with 4 and 5 types were rare. Conclusion: Use of the real-time PCR and reverse DOT-BLOT assay can determine the high-risk HPV types and the occurrence of coinfection with multiple HPV types. Key words: HPV type, Reverse DOT-BLOT, real-time PCR,PCR, cervical cancer

Safety Monitoring and Warning System for Subway Construction Workers using Wearable Technology

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun-hua Chen ◽  
Da-hu Wang ◽  
Cun-yuan Sun
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Video Surveillance ◽  
Early Warning ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Safety Monitoring ◽  
Wearable Technology ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Great Success ◽  
Subway Construction ◽  
Monitoring And Early Warning

Objective: This study focused on the application of wearable technology in the safety monitoring and early warning for subway construction workers. Methods: With the help of real-time video surveillance and RFID positioning which was applied in the construction has realized the real-time monitoring and early warning of on-site construction to a certain extent, but there are still some problems. Real-time video surveillance technology relies on monitoring equipment, while the location of the equipment is fixed, so it is difficult to meet the full coverage of the construction site. However, wearable technologies can solve this problem, they have outstanding performance in collecting workers’ information, especially physiological state data and positioning data. Meanwhile, wearable technology has no impact on work and is not subject to the inference of dynamic environment. Results and conclusion: The first time the system applied to subway construction was a great success. During the construction of the station, the number of occurrences of safety warnings was 43 times, but the number of occurrences of safety accidents was 0, which showed that the safety monitoring and early warning system played a significant role and worked out perfectly.

scholarly journals Risk Perception in the Construction Industry: Differences Between Italian and Migrant Workers Before and After a Targeted Training Intervention

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-71
Author(s):  
Federico Ricci ◽  
Giulia Bravo ◽  
Alberto Modenese ◽  
Fabrizio De Pasquale ◽  
Davide Ferrari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Perception ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Visual Tool ◽  
Occupational Risks ◽  
Linguistic Barriers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Difference

We developed a visual tool to assess risk perception for a sample of male construction workers (forty Italian and twenty-eight immigrant workers), just before and after a sixteen-hour training course. The questionnaire included photographs of real construction sites, and workers were instructed to select pictograms representing the occupational risks present in each photograph. Points were awarded for correctly identifying any risks that were present, and points were deducted for failing to identify risks that were present or identifying risks that were not present. We found: (1) Before the course, risk perception was significantly lower in immigrants compared to Italians ( p < .001); (2) risk perception improved significantly ( p < .001) among all workers tested; and (3) after the training, the difference in risk perception between Italians and immigrants was no longer statistically significant ( p = .1086). Although the sample size was relatively small, the results suggest that the training is effective and may reduce the degree to which cultural and linguistic barriers hinder risk perception. Moreover, the use of images and pictograms instead of words to evaluate risk perception could also be applied to nonconstruction workplaces.

scholarly journals Exploring the Relationship between Safety Climate and Worker Safety Behavior on Building Construction Sites in Taiwan

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3326
Author(s):  
Wei Tong Chen ◽  
Hew Cameron Merrett ◽  
Ying-Hua Huang ◽  
Theresia Avila Bria ◽  
Ying-Hsiu Lin
Keyword(s):  
Safety Climate ◽  
Organizational Factors ◽  
Safety Training ◽  
Building Construction ◽  
Construction Workers ◽  
Occupational Accidents ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Safety Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

Construction occupational accidents are often attributed to workers’ having an insufficient perception of how their actions influence safety in the construction site. This research explores the relationship between safety climate (SC) and personnel safety behavior (SB) of construction workers operating on building construction sites in Taiwan. The study discovered a significant positive relationship between SC and SB of Taiwan’s building construction sites, and in turn SC level had a positive impact on SB participation and overall safety perceptions. The higher the SC cognition of Taiwan’s building construction workers, the better the performance of SB was found to be. The dimension of "safety commitment and safety training" had the greatest relationship with SB. Safety training also had a deep impact on the cognition of SB. Therefore, the organizational culture and attitudes to safety coupled with the successful implementation of safety education and training can effectively enhance SC and worker SB on building construction sites in Taiwan, thereby potentially reducing the impacts of the underlying organizational factors behind safety related incidents.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document