Logistics Work, Ergonomics and Social Sustainability: Empirical Musculoskeletal System Strain Assessment in Retail Intralogistics

Background: A large proportion of logistics jobs still rely on manual labor and therefore place a physical strain on employees. This includes the handling of heavy goods and physiologically unfavorable postures. Such issues pose a risk for employee health and work capability. This article provides a detailed empirical analysis and a decision process structure for the allocation of ergonomic measures in warehousing and intralogistics processes. Methods: The methodological basis is a load assessment of the musculoskeletal system in retail intralogistics. Based on the established measurements systems CUELA and OWAS, the specific loads on employees are assessed for four typical logistics workplace settings. These are combined with standards for efficient decision rules regarding contracting and developing ergonomic improvements. Results: The results suggest an increased risk of long-term low back injury for the selected four standard work situations in warehousing and likely apply to similar work environments in logistics. Using measures, posture descriptions, and international standards, we show how already few threshold values serve as sufficient conditions to decide if ergonomic interventions are required. Conclusions: The specific contribution is characterized by the combination of literature review results, empirical results, and the identification and discussion of specific mitigation measures. These elements are focused on the highly relevant ergonomic situation of logistics workers and present a unique contribution towards the knowledge base in this field due to the multi-perspective approach.

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Household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling

Science ◽

10.1126/science.abh2939 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. eabh2939

Author(s):

Justin Lessler ◽

M. Kate Grabowski ◽

Kyra H. Grantz ◽

Elena Badillo-Goicoechea ◽

C. Jessica E. Metcalf ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Online Survey ◽

Positive Association ◽

The United States ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Office Work ◽

School Based ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Extra Curricular Activities ◽

Low Levels

In-person schooling has proved contentious and difficult to study throughout the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Data from a massive online survey in the United States indicates an increased risk of COVID-19-related outcomes among respondents living with a child attending school in-person. School-based mitigation measures are associated with significant reductions in risk, particularly daily symptoms screens, teacher masking, and closure of extra-curricular activities. A positive association between in-person schooling and COVID-19 outcomes persists at low levels of mitigation, but when seven or more mitigation measures are reported, a significant relationship is no longer observed. Among teachers, working outside the home was associated with an increase in COVID-19-related outcomes, but this association is similar to other occupations (e.g., healthcare, office work). While in-person schooling is associated with household COVID-19 risk, this risk can likely be controlled with properly implemented school-based mitigation measures.

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The influence of workplace stress and coping on depressive symptoms among registered nurses in Bangladesh

Belitung Nursing Journal ◽

10.33546/bnj.1959 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Reva Mondal ◽

Yajai Sitthimongkol ◽

Nopporn Vongsirimas ◽

Natkamol Chansatitporn ◽

Kathy Hegadoren

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Depressive Symptoms ◽

Coping Strategies ◽

Registered Nurses ◽

Depression Scale ◽

Workplace Stress ◽

Unique Contribution ◽

Workplace Stressors ◽

Increased Risk ◽

The Relationship

Background: Nurses report high levels of workplace stress, which has been linked to an increased risk for experiencing depressive symptoms.Nurses’ workplace stress is also linked to increased absenteeism and decreased job satisfaction. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine: (1) the incidence of depressive symptoms among hospital-based registered nurses in Bangladesh; (2) common sources of workplace stress and their relationships to individual characteristics and depressive symptom scores; and (3) the potential mediating roles of coping strategies in the relationship between workplace stress and depressive symptoms. Methods: A cross-sectional study design involved three hundred and fifty-two registered nurses. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and three standardized tools measuring sources of nurses’ workplace stress, coping strategies, and depressive symptoms. Results: More than half of the participants scored ≥ 16 on the CES-D, which was associated with a major depression episode. Total NSS scores had a small but significant influence on scores on the depression scale. Coping strategies had no mediated effect on the relationship between workplace stress and scores on the depression scale. Low-reliability coefficients for subscales of two of the standardized tools highlight the challenge for researchers in developing countries to address contextual differences that may influence the meanings attached to individual items. Conclusion: Findings suggest that the mental health of registered nurses in Bangladesh requires immediate attention in part by attending to workplace stressors. Further research should focus on a deeper understanding of Bangladeshi registered nurses’ work experiences and the unique contribution that workplace stressors have on their physical and mental health.

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High-Level Disinfection in Ambulatory Care: Overcoming the Barriers of a Decentralized System through Auditing and Education

Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology ◽

10.1017/ash.2021.21 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 1 (S1) ◽

pp. s11-s11

Author(s):

Sonja Rivera Saenz

Keyword(s):

Infection Control ◽

Ambulatory Care ◽

Inventory Management ◽

Ambulatory Setting ◽

Infection Control Team ◽

Care Network ◽

Standard Work ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Control Team ◽

High Level

Background: High-level disinfection (HLD) of semicritical instruments in a multispecialty ambulatory care network has the potential for increased risk due to the decentralized instrument reprocessing and lack of a sterile processing department. Attention to HLD practices is an important part of device-borne outbreak prevention. Method: An HLD database was developed to identify specific departments and locations where HLD occurred across a 30-medical practice ambulatory care network in eastern Massachusetts, which included otolaryngology, urology, endoscopy, and obstetrics/gynecology departments. Based on qualitative feedback from managers and reprocessing staff, this database centralized information that included the supply inventory including manufacturer and model information, HLD methodology, standard work, and listing of competency evaluations. The infection control team then led audits to directly observe compliance with instrument reprocessing and a monthly-driven HLD calendar was developed to enforce annual competencies. Result: The results of the audits demonstrated variability across departments with gaps in precleaning, transportation of used instruments, the dilution of enzymatic cleaner, and maintenance of quality control logs. Given the uniqueness of shape and size of various ambulatory locations, proper storage and separation between clean and dirty spaces were common pitfalls. Auditing also revealed different levels of staff understanding of standard work and variable inventory management. Centralized education sessions held jointly by the infection control team and various manufacturers for the reprocessing staff helped to create and reinforce best practices. Conclusion: Decentralized HLD that occurs across multiple ambulatory care sites led to gaps in instrument reprocessing and unique challenges due to variable geography of sites, physical space constraints, and an independent approach to procuring medical supplies. Through the auditing and feedback of all areas that perform HLD, an effective and sustainable strategy was created to ensure practice improvement. Streamlining standard work, seeking direct input from frontline staff, and collective educational events were critical to our success in the ambulatory setting.Funding: NoDisclosures: None

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Parental Divorce and Union Disruption Among Young Adults in Sweden

Journal of Family Issues ◽

10.1177/0192513x08331028 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 30 (5) ◽

pp. 688-713 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Michael Gähler ◽

Ying Hong ◽

Eva Bernhardt

Keyword(s):

Young Adults ◽

Parental Divorce ◽

Interpersonal Behavior ◽

Unique Contribution ◽

Union Dissolution ◽

Socioeconomic Conditions ◽

Union Commitment ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Questionnaire Surveys ◽

The Impact

This article analyzes the impact of parental divorce on the disruption of marital and nonmarital unions among young adults in Sweden, using longitudinal data from repeated mail questionnaire surveys (1999 and 2003) with 1,321 respondents (aged 26, 30, and 34 in 2003). The study takes into account several possible mechanisms governing the parent—offspring union dissolution link, including indicators on life course and socioeconomic conditions, attitudes toward divorce, union commitment, and interpersonal behavior. Findings reveal that respondents with divorced parents exhibit an increased risk for their own union disruption of almost 40%. When controls for all mechanisms are added, the excess risk ceases to be statistically significant. The unique contribution of each mechanism, however, is limited. Rather, the mechanisms seem to operate jointly.

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Industry Best Practice Risk based design for LPG Facility: Gap in Bangladesh practice

Journal of Chemical Engineering ◽

10.3329/jce.v30i1.34790 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 30 (1) ◽

pp. 8-11

Author(s):

Kamrul Islam ◽

Sharmin Sultana

Keyword(s):

Best Practice ◽

Chemical Engineering ◽

International Standards ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Risk Level ◽

Ambient Conditions ◽

Design Standards ◽

Safety Issues ◽

Safety Distance ◽

Safety Regulations

Bangladesh safety regulations and practice is at nascent stage. Safety distance regulation for LPG installation does not match with prescriptive standard API 2510 or other international standards. No detail technical basis is available publicly for such decision making by authority. The present study focuses on risk based design best practice in industries and gap in Bangladesh safety regulations. World LPG industry faces major accidents with fatalities and huge damages. Setting up bigger safety distance with conventional firefighting equipment is not the only mitigation measures to solve complex safety issues of LPG facilities. These two parameters do not ensure whether facility risk is tolerable and ALARP. Apart from this, safety distance and protection system design varies with facility layout, wind flows, systems reliability and site ambient conditions. For accident cases, hazards consequence modeling is carried out to calculate safety distances. Industry best practice is to apply risk based design that quantify complex risk level of a facility, propose mitigation measures and thereby risk acceptance criteria in the early phase of the project for authority approval. Many countries follow such detail regulation. Regulations of API, ISO, HSE UK and NORSOK, petroleum authority Norway have been utilized as basic standards in this paper. Gap in Bangladesh safety regulations are identified. This need to be further assessed based on industry best practice risk based design standards and practices. Without appropriate regulation, Bangladesh LPG industry and society remains in enormous intolerable personnel, environmental and economic risk.Journal of Chemical Engineering, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2017: 8-11

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Optimal investment policies for defined benefit pension funds

Journal of Pension Economics and Finance ◽

10.1017/s1474747205002398 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 1-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

ARJEN SIEGMANN

Keyword(s):

Stock Returns ◽

Reference Point ◽

Risk Measure ◽

Decision Rules ◽

Optimal Investment ◽

Pension Funds ◽

Optimal Decision ◽

Defined Benefit ◽

Investment Policies ◽

Increased Risk

This paper analyzes optimal investment policies for pension funds of a defined benefit (DB) type. The nature of a DB fund induces a natural modeling of preferences being of the mean-downside risk type. With compensation for inflation as an explicit goal of a pension fund, a natural reference point for the risk measure is the future (indexed) value of the liabilities. Results are presented for different levels of inflation uncertainty and its correlation with stock returns. The optimal decision rules show increased risk-taking for funding ratios moving away from the discounted value of the reference point. Furthermore, it is shown that the outcomes are comparable with those using a mean-downside deviation criterion. We provide intuition for the results and compare the outcomes with actual investment policies of six large Dutch pension funds.

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Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of depression in an elderly population living with family members in Beijing, China

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291708003164 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 38 (12) ◽

pp. 1723-1730 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

X. Ma ◽

Y.-T. Xiang ◽

S.-R. Li ◽

Y.-Q. Xiang ◽

H.-L. Guo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health Professionals ◽

International Standards ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Lifetime Prevalence ◽

Health Concern ◽

Prevalence Rates ◽

Men And Women ◽

Increased Risk ◽

Sociodemographic Correlates ◽

Beijing China

BackgroundTo date, there has been no large-scale survey of geriatric depression (GD) involving both rural and urban areas in China using standardized assessment tools and diagnostic criteria. This study aimed to determine the 12-month and lifetime prevalence rates of GD and sociodemographic correlates in urban and rural regions of Beijing, China.MethodA total of 1601 elderly patients (aged ⩾60 years) were randomly selected and interviewed in Beijing using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI 1.0). Basic sociodemographic and clinical data were also collected during the interviews.ResultsThe overall 12-month prevalence of GD was 4.33%, and the 12-month prevalence rates for men and women were 2.65% and 5.83% respectively. The overall lifetime prevalence of GD was 7.83%, and lifetime prevalence rates for men and women were 4.65% and 10.66% respectively. Female sex, lower educational level, monthly income, rural abode, and the presence of one or more major medical conditions were associated with increased risk of GD. Of the GD subjects interviewed, 25.2% were receiving some type of treatment, with only 4.7% preferring to seek treatment from mental health professionals.ConclusionsAlthough still relatively low by international standards, there is an increasing trend in the prevalence of GD in China. The low percentage of subjects treated for GD is a major public health concern that should be addressed urgently.

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CYBERCRIME: THEORETICAL DETERMINANTS, CRIMINAL POLICIES, PREVENTION & CONTROL MECHANISMS

International Journal of Technology and Systems ◽

10.47604/ijts.1133 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 34

Author(s):

Nasser AL-Dosari Khalifa

Keyword(s):

Police Officers ◽

Mixed Method ◽

Target Population ◽

Online Banking ◽

International Standards ◽

Control Measures ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Unique Contribution ◽

Mixed Method Research ◽

Expert Interview

Purpose: The research aimed to explore the theoretical determinants of cybercrime in Qatar and assess how it can be prevented and minimised. Methodology: This was done using the mixed method research design through the survey strategy and semi-structured interviews with experts in the field of cybercrime in Qatar. Having adopted a mixed-method research methodology, the study had a target population of 200 participants for questionnaire survey, while expert interview had a target population of 11 experts. All these participants were purposively sampled in pursuit of engaging respondents who had knowledge, experience and expertise in cybercrime, such as IT experts and professionals working on cyber security solutions, Lawyers, police officers working in cybercrime department in Qatar, and lawyers who had dealt with cybercrime. The results of the survey were quantified using the Likert scale and analysed quantitatively by the factor analysis, and frequency tables. The results of the interviews were analysed qualitatively. Findings: The results of the survey revealed that the most typical types of cybercrime in Qatar include website hacking, email cyberattacks, and online banking cyberattacks. The predominant motive for cybercrime in the country is monetary gains. However, the findings from the logistic regression analysis reveal that different types of cybercrime are associated with different determinants, and online banking crimes are predominantly driven by monetary gains. Moreover, the findings from IT experts interviewed revealed various measures can be adopted as control measures of cybercrime activities and hazards, such as development of stronger networks by commercial companies to protect their cyber assets and use of up-to-date protective software that detect and ensures complete data security. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: Further, the findings, in relation to the effective methods and mechanisms for preventing cybercrime, suggest that it can be reduced through the spread of awareness among people and companies and through the adoption of preventive control mechanisms. Further, the study recommends that governments should formulate and implement legislations aimed at enhancing stringent measures of combating and dealing with cybercrime in convergence with international standards and practices. Besides, companies should adopt technological cybersecurity solutions to enhance effective protection of intellectual property, intrusion, and malicious damage of data as well as other cyber-related crimes.

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Prevalence and risk factors for in-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Massachusetts K-12 public schools, 2020-2021

10.1101/2021.09.22.21263900 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sandra B Nelson ◽

Caitlin Dugdale ◽

Alyssa Bilinski ◽

Duru Cosar ◽

Nira L Pollock ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Index Case ◽

Transmission Risk ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Contact Tracing ◽

Convenience Sample ◽

School Based ◽

Increased Risk ◽

K 12 ◽

Index Cases

Introduction The SARS-CoV-2 secondary attack rate (SAR) in schools is low when mitigation measures are adopted, Data on the relative impact of such strategies are limited. We evaluated the SARS-CoV-2 SAR in Massachusetts schools during 2020-21 and factors associated with transmission risk. Methods: In a convenience sample of 25 Massachusetts public K-12 school districts, de-identified information about SARS-CoV-2 cases and their school-based contacts was reported using a standardized contact-tracing tool. Index cases were included if they were in school while infectious. SAR was defined as the proportion of in-school contacts acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection and designated as possible or probable in-school transmission by school-based teams. We compared exposure-specific SAR using unadjusted risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI); p-values were calculated using Fishers exact tests. Results Eight districts (70 schools with >33,000 enrolled students) participated. There were 435 index cases and 1,771 school-based contacts (Table 1). Most contacts (1327/1771 [75%]) underwent SARS-CoV-2 testing and 39/1327 (2.9%) contacts tested positive. Of 39 positive contacts, 10 (25.6%) had clear out-of-school exposures and were deemed not in-school transmissions, so were excluded from further calculations. Twenty-nine (74.4%) contacts were deemed possible or probable in-school transmissions, resulting in an in-school SAR of 2.2%. Of the 29 in-school transmissions, 6 (20.7%) were staff-to-staff, 7 (24.1%) were staff-to-student, 3 (10.3%) were student-to-staff, and 13 (44.8%) were student-to-student; 6 (20.7%) occurred from index cases attending work/school while symptomatic. The unadjusted SAR (Table 2) was significantly higher if the index case was a staff member versus a student (RR 2.18, 95% CI 1.06-4.49; p=0.030), if the index case was identified via in-school contact tracing versus via school-based asymptomatic testing (RR 8.44, 95% CI 1.98-36.06; p=0.001), if the exposure occurred at lunch versus elsewhere (RR 5.74, 95% CI 2.11-15.63; p<0.001; all lunch transmissions were staff-to-staff), and if both parties were unmasked versus both masked (RR 6.98, 95% CI 3.09-15.77; p<0.001). For students, SAR did not differ by grade level. Conclusions Secondary attack rates for SARS-CoV-2 were low in public school settings with comprehensive mitigation measures in place before the emergence of the delta variant; lack of masking and staff-to-staff dining were associated with increased risk.

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Status of persons with mental disability deprived of liberty

Sociologija ◽

10.2298/soc1804856j ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 856-879

Author(s):

Milos Jankovic

Keyword(s):

Mental Illness ◽

Social Welfare ◽

Psychiatric Hospitals ◽

Causative Factor ◽

International Standards ◽

Mental Disability ◽

Criminal Sanctions ◽

Welfare Institutions ◽

Increased Risk ◽

The Status

This article analyzes the status of persons with mental disability deprived of liberty in institutions of detention, such as psychiatric hospitals, institutions for the enforcement of criminal sanctions, police stations and various types of social welfare institutions of the home type (including geriatric institutions and homes for the elderlies). Different grounds and forms of their deprivation of liberty were examined and structured; the shortcomings in the current regulations, their compliance with international standards, and the omissions in their implementation, are pointed out; a number of unfavorable aspects of deprivation of liberty are presented, which in practice are faced by people with mental disability. Particular attention is paid to the fact that persons with mental disability are exposed to increased risk of torture and other forms of abuse during their deprivation of liberty, which can be a causative factor in the emergence or a significant promoter in further deterioration of their mental illness.

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