Lower Back Pain as an Occupational Hazard Among Ugandan Health Workers

Background: Lower back pain is a public health concern affecting 70–85% of the world's population. There is paucity of published data on the prevalence, disability and risk factors for lower back pain among health workers in Uganda.Objective: To determine the frequency rate (note that is it implicit that frequency is a rate like incidence so including rate seems redundant here. This is bounded by zero and infinity. In contrast, prevalence is bounded by 0 and 1 and is thus a proportion not a rate) of lower back pain and its associated risks amongst health professionals in the Arua District of Uganda.Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study of 245 consecutive participants conducted during February-April 2020. We stratified risks as individual or work related and analyzed the data using IBM SPSS version 25. Chi-square was used to measure the significance of association between categorical variables at 95% confidence interval, regarding a p ≤ 0.05 as significant.Results: The mean age of participants was 40.87 years ± 8.74 (SD), with female predominance (69.8%). Majority were either general nurses or midwives (64.9%) and more than half had practiced for over 6–10 years. The frequency rate of lower back pain was 39.6% (n = 97). Individual factors associated with LBP were; cigarette smoking (X2 = 33.040; P ≤ 0.001), alcohol consumption (X2 = 13.581; P ≤ 0.001), age (X2 = 14.717; P = 0.002), and female gender (X2 = 4.802; P = 0.028). The work related factors significantly associated with lower back pain were: being a nurse/midwife (X2 = 9.829; P = 0.007), working in the outpatient department (X2 = 49.752; P ≤ 0.001), bending (X2 = 43.912; P ≤ 0.001), lifting (X2 = 33.279; P < 0.001), over standing (X2 = 40.096; P ≤ 0.001), being in awkward positions (X2 = 15.607; P= < 0.001), and pushing patients (X2 = 21.999; P ≤ 0.001).Conclusion: The frequency rate of low back pain was high amongst health workers and its main associated individual and work related factors could have been prevented. Health workers should strike a balance between caring for their personal back-health and meeting clients' needs while manually handling patients. Ergonomic structuring, job organization, back health care courses and use of assistive equipment could reduce such occupational hazards in our low resourced settings.

Analisis Frequency Rate dan Severity Rate dalam Kecelakaan Kerja di PT XYZ

Program keselamatan dan kesehatan kerja (K3) merupakan salah satu bagian penting yang perlu diterapkan dalam pelaksanaan kerja. Risiko kecelakaan serta penyakit akibat kerja sering terjadi karena pihak perusahaan tidak menerapkan program K3 dengan baik. Hal ini dapat berdampak pada tingkat produktivitas pekerja. Dengan adanya implementasi program K3 diharapkan dapat meningkatkan produktivitas kerja karyawan. Untuk mengetahui bagaimana pengaruh implementasi program K3 terhadap produktivitas kerja serta seberapa besar hubungan antara keduanya maka dilakukanlah penelitian terhadap karyawan pada PT XYZ. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis frequency rate dan severity rate dalam kecelakaan kerja di PT XYZ. Keselamatan kerja berkaitan dengan mesin, alat kerja, dan proses pengolahannya, landasan tempat kerja dan lingkungan serta cara-cara melakukan pekerjaan. PT XYZ yang mengelola karet mentah menjadi crumb rubber Sir 20 memiliki 308 orang tenaga kerja, sehingga wajib untuk menerapkan Sistem Manajemen Keselamatan dan Kesehatan Kerja (SMK3). Faktor yang menyebabkan kecelakaan adalah kurang berhati-hatinya karyawan saat bekerja dan kurangnya pemahaman karyawan terhadap program K3 yang sudah ditentukan oleh perusahaan. Berdasarkan analisis yang telah dilakukan, diketahui bahwa frekuensi kecelakaan kerja yang terjadi pada saat produksi dalam satu tahun kerja yaitu sebesar 4,24 kecelakaan per 1.000.000 jam kerja dan tingkat keparahan kecelakaan kerja sebesar 5,29 per 1.000.000 jam kerja.

Detection of LFM Radar Signals and Chirp Rate Estimation Based on Time-Frequency Rate Distribution

Linear frequency-modulated (LFM) signals are the most significant example of waveform used in low probability of intercept (LPI) radars, synthetic aperture radars and modern communication systems. Thus, interception and parameter estimation of the signals is one of the challenges in Electronic Support (ES) systems. The methods, which are widely used to accomplish this task are mainly based on transformations from time to time-frequency domain, which concentrate the energy of signals along an instantaneous frequency (IF) line. The most popular examples of such transforms are the short time Fourier transform (STFT) and Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD). However, for LFM waveforms, methods that concentrate signal energy along a line in the time-frequency rate domain may allow to obtain better detection and estimation performance. This type of transformation can be obtained using the cubic phase (CP) function (CPF). In the paper, the detection of LFM waveform and its chirp rate (CR) parameter estimation based on the extended forms of the standard CPF is proposed. The CPF was originally introduced for instantaneous frequency rate (IFR) estimation for quadratic frequency modulated (QFM) signals i.e., cubic phase signals. Summation or multiplication operations on time cross-sections of the CPF allow to formulate the extended forms of the CPF. Based on these forms, detection test statistics and the estimation procedure of LFM signal parameters have been proposed. The widely known estimation methods assure satisfying accuracy for high SNR levels, but for low SNRs the reliable estimation is a challenge. The proposed approach based on joint analysis of detection and estimation characteristics allows to increase the reliability of chirp rate estimates for low SNRs. The results of Monte-Carlo simulation investigations on LFM signal detection and chirp rate estimation evaluated by the mean squared error (MSE) obtained by the proposed methods with comparisons to the Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) are presented.

Promotional rhetorical strategies in topic generalizations of increasing specificity

This study explores the rhetorical strategies employed in topic generalizations of increasing specificity in the introductions from the leading peer-reviewed journals. Specifically, we identified the substeps in Move1-Step1, which show how the writers promote the significance of the research area. The qualitative approach enabled us to distinguish eight substeps provisionally outlining the common patterning of the discourse and to analyze the linguistic choices enhancing the persuasiveness of claims. Citation, attitude markers, boosters and hedges have been found the most effective devices for preserving balance between assertion and concession. The quantitative analysis of the texts defined the frequency rate of the substeps discerned including their total sum of occurrences and percentages per introduction. The substep level analysis has contributed to scrutinizing the subtle communicative functions of the rhetorical strategies in the textual structure.

Injury rate in professional football: A systematic review

The goal of this paper is to determine the injury frequency rate in professional football players in leagues and national competitions by analyzing existing papers. We have chosen 21 articles according to the PRISMA method from the Google Scholar, ResearchGate Scopus, and Web of Science databases that fit both inclusion and exclusion criteria. We have discussed the following four segments based on the content of the selected papers: 1) An analysis of the injury frequency rate on the level of national teams, 2) An analysis of the injury frequency rate in club leagues, 3) A comparison of the injury frequency rate in matches and in practice, and 4) An analysis of the injury frequency rate in male versus female football players. The paper concludes that major national team tournaments have the highest injury frequency rate and that the probability of injury is four to five times higher in a match than in practice. The injury frequency rate in female players is lower than in male players regardless of the type of competition (national teams or leagues).

Estimation Method of SAR Doppler Frequency Rate Based on FrFT

Due to the problem that the existing Doppler frequency rate estimation method is limited by the estimation accuracy, a novel estimation method of Doppler frequency rate is proposed. The present method searches the frequency rate according to the characteristic of the chirp signal in the FrFT domain. Firstly, dechirp is performed on several strong scattering points extracted from the data domain after pulse compression, and a frequency domain focused image is obtained after FFT. Then the maximum point of each distance unit is extracted. The energy of the maximum point is selected by using the window processing. After that, IFFT is performed and the dechirp conjugate reference function is multiplied by using the selected points. FrFT is performed according to the preset orders. The entropy is used to evaluate whether the order of FRFT is optimal or not. The Doppler frequency rate is calculated by using the optimal order. The simulation and real data are processed and analyzed. The present method can estimate the Doppler frequency rate accurately. A well-focused SAR image is obtained after azimuth matching filtering.

Kendali Arah pada Brain Computer Interface Berbasis Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials

Various studies regarding to Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP) based Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system with Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal has developed as BCI implementation on directional control, however lackness found on those studies which are long time on classification duration, to many electrode channels used and the electrode channels located on special area. This study we developed the SSVEP based BCI system with one second classification duration, four active channels used and electrode channels located based on The International 10-20 System. Stimulus used are red colored object with 11 Hz frequency rate represents as left directional control class, blue colored object with 13 Hz frequency rate represents as right directional control class and white colored background represents as relax class. Filter bank with eight frequency range (11 Hz, 22 Hz, 33 Hz, 13 Hz, 26 Hz, 39 Hz, 12-29 Hz dan 30-50 Hz) followed by Root Mean Square (RMS) used as feature extraction for every second of data. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) classification and 5-Fold Cross Validation are used to knowing the performance of the developed system. Developed BCI system resulted accuracy 78,20% with True Positive Rate (TPR) 86,00% and False Discovery Rate (FDR) 23,21%.