Who Bears the Burden of a Pandemic? COVID-19 and the Transfer of Risk to Digital Platform Workers

In this paper, we analyze the recessionary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital platform workers. The crisis has been described as a great work-from-home experiment, with platform ecosystems positing as its most advanced form. Our analysis differentiates the direct (health) and indirect (economic) risks incurred by workers, to critically assess the portrayal of platforms as buffers against crisis-induced layoffs. We submit that platform-mediated labor may eventually increase precarity, without necessarily reducing health risks for workers. Our argument is based on a comparison of the three main categories of platform work—“on-demand labor” (gigs such as delivery and transportation), “online labor” (tasks performed remotely, such as data annotation), and “social networking labor” (content generation and moderation). We discuss the strategies that platforms deploy to transfer risk from clients onto workers, thus deepening existing power imbalances between them. These results question the problematic equivalence between work-from-home and platform labor. Instead of attaining the advantages of the former in terms of direct and indirect risk mitigation, an increasing number of platformized jobs drift toward high economic and insuppressible health risks.

Funding in the budgetary institution as a factor of staff satisfaction

The article considers the peculiarities of labor financing in a budgetary institution through the lens of staff satisfaction with working conditions, which is one of the priority goals of the organization’s personnel policy. The article presents a methodology for assessing staff satisfaction with work in a budget institution, which allows you to identify «problem zones» and improve working conditions. The authors tested the proposed technique. The proposed methodology is based on a comprehensive approach, which takes into account working conditions, financing, labor content and interaction of employees within the structural unit. As a result of the development of the methodology, a model of interaction of the department with other structural divisions of the educational organization was proposed.The purpose of the model is to identify relationships between business units to optimize and balance the interests of all participants. The interaction of structural divisions is carried out with the aim of organizing the educational process and research activities, exchanging experience, building interdisciplinary ties, and implementing comprehensive scientific research. The organization of interaction between faculties allows you to integrate the research base an

Prospects of application of roller compacted concrete in hydro schemes of Ukraine

Prospects of application of roller compacted concrete in hydro schemes of Ukraine are considered. The number of dams erected with application of roller compacted concrete is growing year after year in the world. Roller compacted concrete is an especially dry concrete mixture with decreased content of cement and increased content of pozzolana (fly ash). The broad physico-mechanical peculiarities of roller compacted concrete depend not only on its composition but also on technology of its laying and compacting in dam. Rapid construction of gravity dams with use of equipment for earth-moving works enables the more economic construction of protective embankments. Prospects of application of roller compacted concrete during erection and restoration of existing protective embankments in regions with increased flood hazard in the west of Ukraine are considered. The use of roller compacted concrete allows reducing construction deadlines by a factor of 2–3, and, in so doing, reducing the labor content by a factor of 4–5 at the expense of full mechanization of works. Decrease in content of binder in composition of roller compacted concrete by 30–80 kg/m3 favors decrease in heat release and, correspondingly, the occurrence of temperature contraction cracks, which in its turn favors economy during construction of hydro-technical structures of hydro schemes.

The improved methodology for calculating elements for fastening suspended pipes at installing explosion-proof bulkheads

The authors reviewed and improved the methodology for calculating fastening elements of the suspended pipes in the explosion-proof bulkhead, when it is exposed to a shock wave, with taking into account influence of angles of the fastening element inclination relatively to the vertical and horizontal planes of the roadway. For determining forces in the fastening elements of the suspension with accounting influence of angles of vertical and horizontal working planes, and for choosing a suspended pipe fastening bearing the greatest load, three types of the suspended pipe fastening were considered for mounting explosion-proof bulkheads in the belt road 2, longwall №10, of the private joint-stock company “Pokrovskoye”. A scheme is proposed for calculating the suspended pipe elements to be fastened to the structural elements of the arch support. By applying an analytical method based on the laws and regulations of theoretical mechanics, a coefficient k formula is given, which takes into account angles of the elements fastening relatively to the horizontal and vertical planes with the view of obtaining more accurate calculation of the forces acting in the elements of the suspended pipes fastened to the elements of arch support and choosing proper diameters for them in the existing normative documents. In the article, three schemes of the suspended pipe fastening are considered. An actual load on the suspended pipe fastening elements are calculated with accounting coefficient k, and discontinuity of the fastening elements are calculated for the three types of the suspended pipe fastening and their chosen sections. The proposed types of fastening of suspended pipes in the explosion-proof bulkheads and their calculation will allow the head of an accident liquidation service to choose the type most suitable for practical implementation in specific circumstances and, therefore, to improve safety of miners. On the basis of the considered types of suspended pipes fastening to the structural elements of the arch support and calculation of the occurred reactionary efforts caused by the shock wave, the authors of the article recommend to fasten suspended pipes by six chains because this type is more reliable and requires essentially less labor content when making the fastening elements for the suspended pipe by using combine or conveyor chains available at the mine.

An Economical Design of Automatic Rice Grading using Image Processing

Product quality inspection is a crucial step in the production line of rice industries. To maintain the quality and enhance the inspection methodology, the challenge is to scrutinize rice grain individually over entire batch for escalating the yield. The conventional method used in rice industries is to examine the quality of rice grains manually. The decisions made by human quality control inspectors may be affected by external influences like fatigue, exhaustion or stress which causes non uniformity in evaluation procedure and generate the high probability of errors. The major drawback of the manual inspection comprises high labor content and expenditures. This research paper provides a cost effective design solution to overcome the described limitations by developing a system which helps in sorting rice and eliminate the manual examination. For attaining the automatic grading of rice, the image processing technique is applied which help to sort defected rice grain from the entire batch of rice grains. The system has been developed on MATLAB which helps in the inspection process and its graphical user interface provides information of rice grains in three different quality based categories which sorted on the basis of size and colors. To identify the defected grains, the multilevel threshold method of image processing has been used. The proposed design also helps to determine the quantity of defected rice grains by evaluating the quantity of discolored grains and to identify the size of the rice grain, the geometrical features extracted for each individual rice grain are used to estimate the length

The influence of organizational and technological complexity on the period of job execution

Introduction. An essential index of the efficiency of the construction organization is its building period, which depends on the timing of individual work items. It is especially significant for large projects of public buildings including ones of medical establishments being complicated installations regarding their space-and-planning and technological aspects. It is known that the job duration is influenced by its complexity and number of workers assigned for it. However, the influence of the job complexity remains unexplored. It can be expressed by the average job grade and quantity of requirements for the job results. In addition to this, the nonlinear feature of the dependencies is not studied. Materials and methods. A statistical study was conducted to examine the feature of the processes and the reason for managing requirements. It was based on the data of the job labor content, complexity and duration, the number of workers during the construction of the Research Institute of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology building of the Scientific Medicine Centre of Oncology named after N.N. Blokhin in Moscow. The analysis showed the regression equation, the correlation, and determination coefficients. The significance of the coefficients was estimated using the Student’s criterion. Results. The study demonstrated a nonlinear dependence on the factors considered on the job duration. However, the average job grade is of a minor effect and can be excluded from the influencing factors. On the contrary, the quantity of requirements has a significant impact, which indicates the need to manage the requirements in the course of construction. Conclusions. To reduce the job duration, it is necessary to create a requirements management system that will also improve the quality of the performed work. In the future, it is expedient to conduct research on other construction projects.

Manufacturing of Axisymmetric Components out of Superalloys and Hard-to-Deform Steels by Roll Forming

Heat-resistant alloys are the basic material of gas turbine engine (GTE) design. Fine-grained structure in these alloys can be formed by isothermal forging and then different axisymmetric GTE components as wheels, shafts, rings can be superplastic roll formed. Examples of the superplastic and isothermal deformation use for manufacturing components out of superalloys and steels for critical applications are given. The possibility of roll forming parts as rings with a diameter up to 800 mm and as flange - cone with a diameter up to 600 mm out of superalloys (Inconel 718, EK79, EP741NP), accordingly, on SRZHD-800 and modified PNC-600 mills were showed. The macrostructure investigations of the components after the roll forming showed that the homogeneous structure was formed. The microstructure at the flange portion was fine-grained and at membrane zone was coarse-grained. Cone part was roll formed at isothermal condition from pre-stamped chromium martensitic steel sheet. Manufacturing technology of roll forming was tested by computer and physical simulation. Service properties of components were obtained by subsequent heat treatment. The effectiveness of the technology associated with increased service properties of components and decreases the labor content by automated equipment.