Emerging Exposure Risks and Ethics of the Nanotechnology Workplace

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Silvanus J. Udoka ◽  
Chi Anyansi Archibong
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Emerging Technology ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Current State ◽  
Exposure Data ◽  
Exposure Risks ◽  
State Of The Science ◽  
Regular Contact ◽  
Safety Guidelines

As the applications of nanotechnology continue to span various industries, the number of workers who may be in regular contact with nanomaterials correspondingly expand. The excitement associated with the promise of opportunities to create revolutionary advances in product development using nanotechnology must be moderated with the fact that there is a paucity of empirical data about the potential health effects of exposure to nanoparticles. This lack of exposure data hinders the development of nanotechnology health and safety guidelines (Murashov, 2009). Nanotechnology is science at the size of individual atoms and molecules. At that size scale, materials have different chemical and physical properties than those of the same materials in bulk. With the current state of knowledge in this field, there are unanswered questions about the impacts of nanomaterials and nanoproducts on human health and the environment. This paper reviews the state-of the-science, exposure assessment and mitigation, and potential macro ethical issues that must be considered to mitigate risk implications this emerging technology, nanotechnology.

Environmental, health, and safety issues in rapid prototyping

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B Short ◽  
A. Sirinterlikci ◽  
P. Badger ◽  
B. Artieri
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Prototyping ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Environmental Health And Safety ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Safety Issues ◽  
Safety Risks ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
Safe Work ◽  
Safety Guidelines

Purpose – This study aims to investigate the potential impacts of rapid prototyping systems on the health and safety of operators and the environment, a growing concern given its wide-spread use in industry and academia. Design/methodology/approach – Materials, processing and equipment features were used to identify potential health and safety risks and hazards, as well as environmental effects. Findings – The study concludes with a “best practices” guide for rapid prototyping laboratories and service bureaus. Originality/value – A thorough literature search revealed that Stephen M. Deak, the Rapid Prototyping Department Manager at Hasbro Inc., is the pioneer of the safety and health concerns in the rapid prototyping area. He is the only person to publish papers in this field in addition to these authors’ recent publications. His papers focused on the rapid prototyping laboratory safety guidelines and safe work practices in the rapid prototyping area.

Recent Studies on Fate and Degradation of Hydrocarbons Dispersed Subsea

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-290
Author(s):  
Victoria Broje
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
American Petroleum Institute ◽  
Environmental Benefit ◽  
Current State ◽  
Dispersed Oil ◽  
Oil Biodegradation ◽  
State Of The Science

ABSTRACT The goal of applying dispersants as an oil spill response technique whether at the surface or subsea is to minimize surface oil impacts to people, wildlife, and shorelines and to facilitate rapid dilution and natural degradation of the dispersed oil in the water column. Thus, reliable estimates of the fate and degradation of oil, dispersed oil, and, for subsea releases, gas are key considerations when selecting response techniques. The American Petroleum Institute (API) has sponsored research on various aspects of subsea dispersant injection for over 4 years. Three of the most recent of those studies further advanced our understanding of the fate and biodegradation of hydrocarbons dispersed subsea and are discussed in this paper. An effort to evaluate the latest dispersed oil biodegradation studies and biodegradation modeling algorithms resulted in an overview of current state-of-the-science for characterizing biodegradation processes in far field oil spill models and recommendations on improving these modeling practices. Another project examined the current state-of-the-science on oil sedimentation processes including “marine snow” formation in the context of oil spills and dispersant use. It was conducted in order to better understand dynamics, fate, and environmental impacts of oil sedimentation from the perspective of Net Environmental Benefit Analysis, NEBA (aka Spill Impact Mitigation Assessment). The third study conducted numerical modeling to predict the fate of light hydrocarbons with and without subsea dispersant use and to estimate the changes in air quality near a well site. The goal of this effort was to evaluate whether subsea dispersant injection can reduce surface volatile hydrocarbon concentrations in the vicinity of well-control operations to protect responders’ health and safety. These and other API projects advanced our understanding of the scientific and environmental aspects of subsea dispersant use and provide a scientific basis for inclusion of this technique into contingency plans.

Participative Approaches for Evaluating the Hazards of New Technology

2000 ◽  
Vol 44 (12) ◽  
pp. 2-606-2-609
Author(s):  
Michael J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Health Hazards ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Current State ◽  
Safety And Health ◽  
Short Time ◽  
Participative Approaches

New technology is transforming the workplace and bringing with it hazards that were unknown a few decades ago. New chemicals, plasma gases, biotechnology, new electronic devices, robots, and genetic engineering are being introduced so quickly that we do not know if they pose new threats to health until after they have been in wide use. These new technologies challenge our current state of knowledge about health hazards and our ability to control potential hazards. A major concern is that there currently are not enough resources to handle traditional safety and health hazards, and that these new challenges will tax the capabilities of our current health and safety resources. It is very likely that the potential hazards posed by new technology may not be amenable to traditional safety and health approaches. A major difficulty is that we just do not have enough knowledge about these new technologies or their potential harmful effects to be able to make good judgments. Knowledge about potential health hazards is lacking, and because these technologies have only been around a short time, epidemiological evidence on long term health effects is not available. Our challenge then is to develop new hazard assessment and surveillance methods to deal with emerging technologies. Participative approaches hold promise for successful programs.

Injury Burden of Introducing E-Scooters: A Review of E-Scooter Injury Studies Using Retrospective Review of Emergency Department Records, 2015–2019

2021 ◽  
pp. 036119812110322
Author(s):  
Nicole Iroz-Elardo ◽  
Kristina Currans
Keyword(s):  
Emergency Department ◽  
Head Injuries ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Injury Rate ◽  
Surveillance Data ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Exposure Data ◽  
Specific Subset ◽  
Extremity Injuries ◽  
Injury Burden

With the mass introduction of shared, dockless electric scooter (e-scooter) programs, many cities are struggling to understand injury implications. This article systematically documents what is known about e-scooter injuries using emergency department (ED) studies; it also provides recommendations to better understand the health and safety risks of this emerging mode. A systematic review was performed for all e-scooter articles through November 2019, retaining injury-related articles. In the case where surveillance data and exposure data were available, injury rates were explored. A total of 18 articles were identified, including: five that used surveillance data methods; seven examining all e-scooter injuries from one to three hospitals; and six examining a medically specific subset of those injured. Variations in the reporting structure of data make pooling difficult, but some trends are emerging. Three surveillance studies report an injury rate of 20–25 ED visits per 100,000 trips. Those injured rarely wear helmets, resulting in a high proportion of head injuries. Extremity injuries, including fractures, are also widespread. The profile of the injured appears to be a 30-year-old male. However, once normalized by exposure data, female, young, and older riders may be at higher risk of injury. Comparisons with other modes remain unclear; this is as much a challenge of the exposure data for the other modes as information on e-scooters. Assumptions about comparisons with bicyclists should be more thoroughly examined. Data harmonization and collaboration between vendors, municipalities, and public health departments would improve the quality of data and resulting knowledge about e-scooter safety risk.

What’s So Special about the Developing Immune System?

2008 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-254 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leigh Ann Burns-Naas ◽  
Kenneth L. Hastings ◽  
Gregory S. Ladics ◽  
Susan L. Makris ◽  
George A. Parker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Immune System ◽  
Toxicity Testing ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Immune Development ◽  
Immune Parameters ◽  
Current State ◽  
State Of The Science ◽  
Developmental Immunotoxicity ◽  
Nonhuman Species

The evolution of the subdiscipline of developmental immunotoxicology (DIT) as it exists today has been shaped by significant regulatory pressures as well as key scientific advances. This review considers the role played by legislation to protect children’s health, and on the emergence of immunotoxcity and developmental immunotoxicity guidelines, as well as providing some context to the need for special attention on DIT by considering the evidence that the developing immune system may have unique susceptibilities when compared to the adult immune system. Understanding the full extent of this potential has been complicated by a paucity of data detailing the development of the immune system during critical life stages as well as by the complexities of comparisons across species. Notably, there are differences between humans and nonhuman species used in toxicity testing that include specific differences relative to the timing of the development of the immune system as well as more general anatomic differences, and these differences must be factored into the interpretation of DIT studies. Likewise, understanding how the timing of the immune development impacts on various immune parameters is critical to the design of DIT studies, parameters most extensively characterized to date in young adult animals. Other factors important to DIT, which are considered in this review, are the recognition that effects other than suppression (e.g., allergy and autoimmunity) are important; the need to improve our understanding of how to assess the potential for DIT in humans; and the role that pathology has played in DIT studies in test animals. The latter point receives special emphasis in this review because pathology evaluations have been a major component of standard nonclinical toxicology studies, and could serve an important role in studies to evaluate DIT. This possibility is very consistent with recommendations to incorporate a DIT evaluation into standard developmental and reproductive toxicology (DART) protocols. The overall objective of this review is to provide a ‘snapshot’ of the current state-of-the-science of DIT. Despite significant progress, DIT is still evolving and it is our hope that this review will advance the science.

scholarly journals Ethical issues on artificial intelligence in radiology: how is it reported in research articles? The current state and future directions

2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. e513
Author(s):  
Tomasz Piotrowski ◽  
Joanna Kazmierska ◽  
Mirosława Mocydlarz-Adamcewicz ◽  
Adam Ryczkowski
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Exclusion Criteria ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Current State ◽  
Ethical Status ◽  
The Status ◽  
Clinical Questions ◽  
Almost All

Background. This paper evaluates the status of reporting information related to the usage and ethical issues of artificial intelligence (AI) procedures in clinical trial (CT) papers focussed on radiology issues as well as other (non-trial) original radiology articles (OA). Material and Methods. The evaluation was performed by three independent observers who were, respectively physicist, physician and computer scientist. The analysis was performed for two groups of publications, i.e., for CT and OA. Each group included 30 papers published from 2018 to 2020, published before guidelines proposed by Liu et al. (Nat Med. 2020; 26:1364-1374). The set of items used to catalogue and to verify the ethical status of the AI reporting was developed using the above-mentioned guidelines. Results. Most of the reviewed studies, clearly stated their use of AI methods and more importantly, almost all tried to address relevant clinical questions. Although in most of the studies, patient inclusion and exclusion criteria were presented, the widespread lack of rigorous descriptions of the study design apart from a detailed explanation of the AI approach itself is noticeable. Few of the chosen studies provided information about anonymization of data and the process of secure data sharing. Only a few studies explore the patterns of incorrect predictions by the proposed AI tools and their possible reasons. Conclusion. Results of review support idea of implementation of uniform guidelines for designing and reporting studies with use of AI tools. Such guidelines help to design robust, transparent and reproducible tools for use in real life.

scholarly journals Multimodal Emotion Recognition using Deep Learning

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 52-58
Author(s):  
Sharmeen M.Saleem Abdullah Abdullah ◽  
Siddeeq Y. Ameen Ameen ◽  
Mohammed Mohammed sadeeq ◽  
Subhi Zeebaree
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Affective Computing ◽  
Emotional Awareness ◽  
Computing Systems ◽  
Multimodal Signals ◽  
Current State ◽  
Multimodal Emotion Recognition ◽  
New Research ◽  
State Of The Science ◽  
Facial Images

New research into human-computer interaction seeks to consider the consumer's emotional status to provide a seamless human-computer interface. This would make it possible for people to survive and be used in widespread fields, including education and medicine. Multiple techniques can be defined through human feelings, including expressions, facial images, physiological signs, and neuroimaging strategies. This paper presents a review of emotional recognition of multimodal signals using deep learning and comparing their applications based on current studies. Multimodal affective computing systems are studied alongside unimodal solutions as they offer higher accuracy of classification. Accuracy varies according to the number of emotions observed, features extracted, classification system and database consistency. Numerous theories on the methodology of emotional detection and recent emotional science address the following topics. This would encourage studies to understand better physiological signals of the current state of the science and its emotional awareness problems.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction sector: a systemized review

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ayat ◽  
Malikah ◽  
Chang Wook Kang
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Mitigation Strategy ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Process Improvements ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Safety Guidelines

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has brought profound changes to all sectors of society including the construction sector. The main purpose of this study is to explore and provide insights into the impact and changes that have occurred in the construction sector due to COVID-19 and to present a mitigation framework to minimize the effects.Design/methodology/approachThe scope of this study is limited to peer-reviewed articles in Scopus or Web of Science indexed journals. A systemized review was performed with bibliometric and content analyses of articles related to the impact of COVID-19 on the construction sector.FindingsThrough content analysis, the main topics discussed in the selected articles were grouped into 10 categories. Most of these studies were found to have focused on the challenges, impact, and health and safety at construction sites resulting from the pandemic. The study further identified 39 subtopics through detailed content analysis and organizes them into the categories of negative impacts, positive impacts and opportunities and barriers to COVID-19 safety guidelines in the construction sector. Moreover, the study developed a systematic mitigation strategy based on the recommendations of the literature review to reduce the impact of the current pandemic on the construction sector. The mitigation strategy presents separate set of measures regarding safety guidelines, process improvements, government intervention, psychological support and technology adoption.Originality/valueThe research insights provided in this study are useful for practitioners in guiding them to design effective strategies for addressing the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises. Furthermore, a systematic presentation of the impacts, challenges and mitigation measures in this study will help researchers to identify existing gaps in the literature and explore other aspects of the impact of the pandemic on the construction sector.

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