Transferring ergonomics: A methodology for self diagnosis of workplace problems

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
M. Aileen Sullivan ◽  
E. Nigel Corlett

The pressure from recent and imminent Health and Safety legislation, both in Western Europe and Canada, has increased the awareness of the important contributions of ergonomics. At the same time it has become clear that ergonomists will never be plentiful enough to attack all workplace problems. In today's world economy, often, many companies lack the resources to employ an ergonomist. This creates a need for the transfer of ergonomics to non-ergonomists so that they can address their own workplace problems themselves. To transfer this skill in an effective and safe way requires a methodology which will incorporate a knowledge base, techniques for identifying mismatches between the people and their work, and ways to assist the users to interpret the results of the analyses and implement the necessary changes. Some useful ergonomics techniques are presented to assist people in assessing their own workplaces. They include techniques which measure work demands and their causes, equipment and environment analysis procedures and techniques that assess the potential for musculo-skeletal injuries.

Author(s):  
Kwaku Osei-Hwedie ◽  
Doris Akyere Boateng

As the discussions and debates rage on about the content and direction of social work in Africa, the challenges associated with weaning the profession off its Western and North American roots become apparent. The desire to indigenise or make the profession culturally relevant is well articulated in the literature. Some efforts have been undertaken toward achieving this desire. However, it is evident that despite the numerous discussions and publications, it appears that efforts at indigenising, localising, or making social work culturally relevant have not made much progress. While what must be achieved is somewhat clear; how to achieve it and by what process remain a conundrum. The article, therefore, revisits the issue of making social work culturally relevant in Africa and its associated challenges. Despite the indictment of current social work education and practice in Africa, it appears that many academics and professionals have accepted that what is Western is global, fashionable, and functional, if not perfect. Given this, perhaps, “we should not worry our heads” about changing it. Instead, social work educators and practitioners in Africa should go back to the drawing board to determine how current social work education and practice can be blended with a traditional African knowledge base, approaches and models to reflect and align with the critical principles and ideals within the African context. This is with the hope of making the profession more relevant to the needs of the people of Africa.


2000 ◽  
Vol 176 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Henderson

Humankind has been present on the Australian continent for at least 40 000, some say 60 000 years, remarkably adapted to the environment and having a cultural tradition appreciated by few Caucasians. White people have been here for only 200 years; and psychiatry for about half of that. We know nothing about the mental health of pre-contact indigenous peoples; but we now know a little about the ways in which mental disorders are explained and treated by traditional methods. In two centuries, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands communities, which are very diverse, have been steadily reduced to become only 1.5% of the population. From settlement in 1788 until the 1950s, most non-aboriginal Australians were of Anglo-Saxon or Celtic origin. Since the Second World War, the pattern of immigration has greatly enriched Australian life, first through large numbers of people from the Mediterranean littoral, Western Europe and the Balkans, and more recently from south-east Asia. Ethnic diversity is now evident in most peoples' daily lives – whom you see in the street, whom you work alongside, who your friends are, what you eat and who you have as patients. So the present Australian population of 18 million has undergone a marked change in demography and lifestyle within only two generations. Like the people, psychiatry is also changing rapidly. Where are the changes taking place? What is it like to be a psychiatrist here at present? Where has there been success and where has there been failure? Where is there lots of action?


1983 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
pp. 26-38

The recovery in the OECD area gathered pace in the second quarter, when its total GDP probably increased by as much as 1 per cent. The rise was, however, heavily concentrated in North America and particularly the US. There may well have been a slight fall in Western Europe, where the level of industrial production hardly changed and increases in gross product in West Germany and, to a minor extent, in France were outweighed by falls in Italy and (according to the expenditure measure) the UK.


Author(s):  
Robert A. Ferguson

This chapter addresses the question of whether Americans like to punish. The United States clearly punishes more heavily and for longer periods than other countries, with comparable social and political values. One can land in an American prison for life over minor offenses—a punishment not used for serious offenses in Western Europe. The leading comparativist on criminology, James Whitman, argues that a politics of dignity has instilled mercy and mildness in European systems, while leveling impulses, distrust of authority, and too much power in the people is said to have left the United States with a criminal justice system long in degradation and short on mercy.


Nativa ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 380
Author(s):  
Cinara Da Cunha Siqueira Carvalho ◽  
Ilda De Fátima Ferreira Tinôco ◽  
Cecília De Fátima Souza ◽  
Maria De Fátima Araújo Vieira ◽  
Thamara Amaral Diniz ◽  
...  

O bem-estar animal tem sido amplamente discutido, abordando as ações e efeitos no processo de criação, transporte até o abate, a fim de se adequar os meios de produção. No entanto, bem-estar é um assunto de ampla abrangência e que atualmente, adequa também as condições de trabalho das pessoas que atuam no setor agrícola. A segurança e a saúde dos trabalhadores é motivo de preocupação, uma vez que a forma como o indivíduo se sente ou como exerce as suas atividades, pode influenciar de forma negativa na produção animal. Diante dessa crescente preocupação, objetivou-se com esse trabalho avaliar os efeitos da tipologia das edificações e do sistema de produção de matrizeiros de frangos de corte sobre as condições de saúde, segurança e ergonomia dos trabalhadores envolvidos na atividade. De posse dos dados coletados, verificou-se que as atividades que exigem o carregamento de peso, principalmente quando realizada por mulheres, podem vir a prejudicar a coluna bem como outros membros corporais. Os demais fatores ergonômicos como concentração de gases, luz e ruído não tornaram o ambiente insalubre uma vez que as instalações são abertas favorecendo a ventilação natural e iluminação.Palavras-chave: ergonomia, produção de frangos, trabalho rural. HEALTH AND SAFETY OF WORKERS IN HARBORS OF BROILERS BREEDER ABSTRACT:Animal welfare has been widely discussed, addressing the actions and effects in the process of creation, transportation to slaughter, in order to suit the means of production. However, well-being is a matter of wide scope and currently, it also suits the working conditions of the people who work in the agricultural sector. The safety and health of workers is a matter of concern, since the way in which the individual feels or how he practices his activities may negatively influence animal production. Faced with this growing concern, this work aimed to evaluate the effects of typology of buildings and the system of production of broilers breeder on the health, safety and ergonomic conditions of workers involved in the activity. With the collected data, it was verified that the activities that require the weight load, especially when performed by women, can harm the spine as well as other body limbs. Other ergonomic factors such as concentration of gas, light and noise have not made the environment unhealthy since the facilities are opened favoring natural ventilation and lighting.Keywords: ergonomics, poultry production, rural work.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2083 (3) ◽  
pp. 032043
Author(s):  
Mengshuang Fu

Abstract With the rapid economic development, the urban space environment is becoming more and more complex, various accidents and disasters occur frequently, and safety risks are increasing. The rescue tasks involved in the fire brigade are showing a trend of diversification and complexity. The fire rescue team always puts the people first and insists on serving the people wholeheartedly. It is the guardian of maintaining social stability in our country and safeguarding the health and safety of people’s lives and property and various disaster affairs. The society needs the participation in the fire rescue team. Aiming at the fire rescue problem, this paper uses the fire rescue call data onto 2016 to 2019 to predict the number of fire rescues / rescued calls based on the difference equation to improve the rescue efficiency of the fire brigade. Taking into account the impact on the domestic epidemiced in 2020 on people’s lives, the adjustment value was introduced to adjust part of the alarm data onto 2020 to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the data. Finally, the second-order difference equation is used to predict the alarm data onto 2021 through the least square method, which verifies the accuracy of the model.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrina S. Rogers

One striking feature in the sweep of history is the extent to which humans have manipulated the natural environment to serve our needs and our desires. In the early written record, there are tales of deforestation and soil erosion (Plato, 360 BCE). As early as the seventeenth century, natural historians compared the grasslands around villages to inhabited areas and speculated on the consequences of human activity on natural systems ( Goudie, 2006 , p. 3). The onset of the industrial revolution in Western Europe combined with a growing understanding and knowledge base of science has rendered a circumstance of uncontrolled manipulation of the ecosystems and ever finer ways to measure these consequences. This article is an invitation to challenge us as scholars and practitioners to seek understanding as companies and other organizations take up their roles in a world that we are transforming irrevocably. Why does it matter, after all, that we seek to build a body of knowledge around corporate functioning? It is my intention that this article helps us ponder and reflect on that question.


Author(s):  
Richard A. Gould

As recent events have shown, mass-fatality disasters can have long and painful aftermaths for the relatives and friends of victims. Archaeologists are becoming increasingly involved in applying their scientific skills to medical/legal issues such as victim identification and disaster-scene investigation, with the understanding that their evidence may be challenged in court later on when matters such as inheritance of property or liability arise. Although their findings refer specifically to the ‘court of law’, an argument is presented to apply similar standards in the ‘court of history’ in which most archaeological scholarship takes place. Disaster archaeologists work as teams under the direction of a controlling authority and in close coordination with law-enforcement and emergency services, so special training and procedures (such as ‘chain-of-custody’) are required along with special health-and-safety protocols. In short, disaster archaeology is an evidence-driven, problem-solving use of archaeology to assist the authorities to find out ‘what happened’ at a disaster scene and to aid the families affected by the disaster in the recovery process. It often takes place under stressful conditions and may not be for everyone, but it makes a difference to the people involved in such a disaster.


2020 ◽  
pp. 79-96
Author(s):  
Leila Brännström

In recent years the Sweden Democrats have championed a clarification of the identity of the ‘the people’ in the Instrument of government. The reference, they argue, should be to the ethnic group of Swedes. This chapter will take this ambition to fix the subject of popular sovereignty as the point of departure for discussing some of the ways in which the contemporary anti-foreigner political forces of Northern and Western Europe imagine ‘the people’ and identify their allies and enemies within and beyond state borders. To set the stage for this exploration the chapter will start by looking at Carl Schmitt’s ideas about political friendship, and more specifically the way he imagines the relationship between ‘us’ in a political and constitutional sense and ‘the people’ in national and ethnoracial terms. The choice to begin with Schmitt is not arbitrary. His thoughts about the nature of the political association have found their way into the discourse of many radical right-wing parties of Western and Northern Europe.


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