The impact of musculoskeletal pain and strenuous work on self-reported physical work ability: a cohort study of Swedish men and women

Objective We investigated the separate and combined effects of musculoskeletal pain (MSP) and strenuous work (heavy physical workload (PWL)/low-decision authority) on poor physical work ability (WA). Methods This study uses baseline data from the 2010 Stockholm Public Health Questionnaire (SPHQ) including 9419 workers with good physical WA. Exposure to PWL and decision authority were estimated using sex-specific job-exposure matrices linked to occupations. Exposures (high/low) were combined with the presence of MSP. Follow-up data on physical WA were taken from the 2014 SPHQ and dichotomised (the responses: “moderate”, “rather poor” and “very poor” indicated poor WA). Logistic regression models calculated sex-specific odds ratios adjusting for age, education and health and lifestyle factors. Interaction between MSP and strenuous work was examined using the synergy index (SI). Analyses were conducted using SPSS.27. Results MSP, heavy PWL and low-decision authority were separately associated with poor WA. MSP was associated with higher odds of poor WA than strenuous work for women, the opposite for men. Combinations of MSP and strenuous work often resulted in higher risks of poor WA than when adding the effects of the single exposures (e.g., MSP and heavy PWL men: AOR 4.04 95% CI 2.00–8.15, women: AOR: 3.25 95% CI 1.81–5.83). The SI was non-significant for both sexes. Conclusion Workers with MSP and strenuous work often had higher risks of poor WA than would be expected from adding the effects of the single exposures. To decrease poor WA in this group, strenuous work should be lowered, and MSP addressed in workplaces.

Mobile attachment for automated crack milling

In the dismantling of nuclear facilities, the decontamination and remote-controlled crushing of reinforced concrete is a central point. The main objective is to selectively remove the contaminated material in order to feed the remaining material, which in relation to the overall system or overall mass, represents the predominant part of the normal recycling cycle. For the surface decontamination of the upper millimeters, several methods are available that are constantly being optimized and further developed. However, there is a great need for research in the demolition and selective deep removal of reinforced concrete, e.g. in the case of cracks or eruptions into which contamination could penetrate, or the removal of metallic fixtures. The production of freely measurable surface geometries is a constant objective (Edelmann et al., 2018). The German “Defined removal of highly reinforced concrete” (DefAhS) research project was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from October 2013 to the end of March 2018. In the course of the project, a new combination tool consisting of indexable inserts and impact lamellas was developed. With this method it is possible to remove highly reinforced concrete in one operation. The following property right could be granted: “Device for removing building material” (DE102015114122B3). Within the research project, concrete, reinforcement and fixtures (dowels, rails, anchor plates, pipe penetrations) could be successfully cut. It could also be shown that it is possible to remove several layers of steel reinforcement within a concrete matrix. The “Mobile attachment for automated crack milling” (MAARISS) research project has been running since November 2020. The hybrid milling technology developed in DefAhS is intended to form the basis for the milling drum used in MAARISS. The aim in MAARISS is, among other things, a new development of the extraction system directly on the removal unit and an automation system for use in a nuclear facility. Cracks are to be automatically milled over in order to enable subsequent clearance measurement by the staff on site. The physically very strenuous work of crack uncovering should be reduced to just one operator in a safe environment. The construction of a scaffold should be completely dispensed with and existing transport technology (forklift or lifting platform) should be used.

Do overweight/obesity and low levels of leisure-time vigorous physical activity moderate the effect of occupational physical activity on self-rated health of construction workers?

Purpose To investigate the combined effects of occupational physical activity (OPA) and either overweight/obesity or low levels of leisure-time vigorous physical activity (LTVPA) on self-rated health. Methods A longitudinal study was performed among 29,987 construction workers with complete data on 2 Workers’ Health Surveillance Programs during 2010–2018. Self-reported OPA involved strenuous work postures and manual material handling. Low level of LTVPA was defined as self-reported vigorous activity for less than three times per week lasting at least 20 min per session. Overweight and obesity were based on Body Mass Index (BMI) (25.0 ≤ BMI < 30.0 kg/m2 and BMI ≥ 30.0 kg/m2, respectively) using measured body height and weight. Self-rated health was measured using a single item question. Logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the associations between the separate risk factors at baseline and self-rated health at follow-up. The combined effects of demanding OPA and either overweight/obesity or low level of LTVPA on self-rated health were analyzed using the relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI). Results Mean follow-up duration was 31.7 (SD = 14.9) months. Construction workers with strenuous work postures (OR 1.35 95% CI 1.25–1.46), manual material handling (OR 1.29 95% CI 1.19–1.40), obesity (OR 1.31 95% CI 1.17–1.47) and low LTVPA (OR 1.13 95% CI 1.01–1.25) were more likely to report poor self-rated health at follow-up. No statistically significant interaction effects were found for OPA and obesity or low LTVPA. Conclusions OPA, obesity and low level of LTVPA were separate risk factors for poor self-rated health, but did not appear to have a synergistic effect.

Fraud Detection in Healthcare System using Symbolic Data Analysis

In the era of digitization the frauds are found in all categories of health insurance. It is finished next to deliberate trickiness or distortion for acquiring some pitiful advantage in the form of health expenditures. Bigdata analysis can be utilized to recognize fraud in large sets of insurance claim data. In light of a couple of cases that are known or suspected to be false, the anomaly detection technique computes the closeness of each record to be fake by investigating the previous insurance claims. The investigators would then be able to have a nearer examination for the cases that have been set apart by data mining programming. One of the issues is the abuse of the medical insurance systems. Manual detection of frauds in the healthcare industry is strenuous work. Fraud and Abuse in the Health care system have become a significant concern and that too inside health insurance organizations, from the most recent couple of years because of the expanding misfortunes in incomes, handling medical claims have become a debilitating manual assignment, which is done by a couple of clinical specialists who have the duty of endorsing, adjusting, or dismissing the appropriations mentioned inside a restricted period from their gathering. Standard data mining techniques at this point do not sufficiently address the intricacy of the world. In this way, utilizing Symbolic Data Analysis is another sort of data analysis that permits us to address the intricacy of the real world and to recognize misrepresentation in the dataset.

Comparative characteristics of changes in visual acuity according to test lighting in healthy people and in patients with myopia

The objective of the work consisted of comparing the characteristics of the changes in visual acuity as a function of the illumination of the tests in healthy individuals and in patients with myopia, examining two groups (50 people each): a control group of healthy individuals and patients with high myopia with visual acuity with optimal correction above 1.0. Visual acuity was determined under different lighting conditions (from 50Lx to 400Lx) using optotype tables with a small step of 0.05, and increasing the function δ, which is the difference between these values. δ in healthy individuals is 0.7, and in individuals with myopia it is equal to 0.55, which is a fairly high indicator and confirms the absence of contraindications to attract this category of patients to various types of visually strenuous work, including driving.

Familial Moralities: Moral (Re)source of Commitment in the Immigrant Rights Movement in El Paso, Texas

Social movement scholars acknowledge the importance of morality in joining and shaping social movements. There is less knowledge about the content of morality that keeps social movement participants committed, once in. Moral commitments, I argue, emerge from the work conducted within social movements. By looking at everyday activities in the immigrant rights movement in El Paso, Texas, I analyze how commitment is shaped through the caregiving practices of staff and volunteers within two organizations serving immigrants and asylum seekers on the border: Compromiso and Casa Asuncion. Despite the strenuous work involved, I find care givers in these two organizations make sense of their continued participation by drawing on what I call familial moralities. At Compromiso, a legal aid office, caregivers reflect on their or others’ immigrant family histories, creating an intellectual attachment to the work through family. At Casa Asuncion, a migrant shelter, caregivers draw on new familial roles with migrants and the shelter staff, creating an emotional attachment as family.

Physical workload and increased frequency of musculoskeletal pain: a cohort study of employed men and women with baseline occasional pain

ObjectivesMusculoskeletal pain (MSP) is prevalent among the workforce. This study investigates the long-term association between physical workload (PWL) and increased frequency of MSP among male and female employees with pre-existing occasional MSP.MethodsThis study uses the Stockholm Public Health cohort survey data from the baseline 2006. The sample includes 5715 employees with baseline occasional MSP (no more than a few days per month). Eight PWL exposures and overall PWL were estimated using a job-exposure matrix (JEM). The JEM was assigned to occupational titles from a national register in 2006. Follow-up survey data on frequent MSP (a few or more times a week) were collected from 2010. Logistic regressions produced sex-specific ORs with 95% CIs and were adjusted for education, health conditions, psychological distress, smoking, BMI, leisure-time physical activity and decision authority.ResultsAssociations were observed between several aspects of heavy PWL and frequent MSP for men (eg, OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.13 to 2.20, among those in the highest exposure quartile compared with those in the lowest quartile for heavy lifting) and women (eg, OR 1.76, 95% CI 1.35 to 2.29, among those in the highest exposure quartile compared with those in the the lowest quartile for physically strenuous work). Small changes were observed in the OR after adjustment, but most of the ORs for PWL exposures among the men were no longer statistically significantly increased.ConclusionA high level of exposure to heavy PWL was associated with increased frequency of MSP 4 years later for men and women with baseline occasional pain.

Slavica Popović Filipović, The Great Women in the Great War

This research project was an undertaking involving reviewing extensive archived materials, original documents, correspondence, hand-written texts, and photographs in various archives in different parts of the world, as well as in private family storage. The work in front of us is dedicated to some exceptional women who command exalted positions, women who sacrificed their personal lives by sharing wartime suffering with the Serbian people and armies during the traumatic war years: the typhoid epidemics, the exodus through the Albanian mountain ranges, the exile on the island of Corfu, Corsica, North Africa, on the Russian Front, and in Dobruja. Thus, this book is a remarkable evidence of the dedicated affection and strenuous work of over 2000 women doctors, medical sisters, and nurses who served in the hospitals of the Serbian Red Cross Society, the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, the hospitals of the Serbian Relief Fund (SRF) and other voluntary and humanitarian organizations, in Serbia itself, and in the exile — both during the Great War and afterwards.

Vaccine for SARS-CoV-2- The Facts That We Know So Far

The whole world is under the grip of a pandemic of COVID-19, a disease caused by a newly discovered strain of coronavirus and the name given is SARS-CoV-2. The term 'novel' is used for this virus because researches suggest that its origin is from an animal which was transmitted to a human and now is capable of having transmission from human to human. Symptoms of COVID-19 can be mild to severe. Mortality is high in severe cases. Also, this virus is a serious threat to the elderly and people with other systemic illness. There is no specific protocol provided for its treatment and the treatment primarily focuses on symptomatic relief. Human immune systems have never come across this particular type of strain of virus before. As a result, human body has not developed immunity for it moreover no effective vaccine is developed for it at this point of time. But there is an active strenuous work going on to understand more and more about the interaction of host-pathogen, how does host immunity responses to this virus moreover how this pathogen is able to invade the immune system which can be utilised for the development of a vaccine. As the disease is highly infectious, there is an urgent need for the development of a vaccine. Hence this review aims to summarize the undergoing scientific work and research in progress for the development of vaccine and all the advancement that has come in focus for its development.

Feelings, Stress, and Adaptation Strategies of Nurses against COVID-19 in Guayaquil

Objective. To explore the feelings, stress factors, and adaptation strategies of nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Methods. A cross-sectional, descriptive quantitative study, conducted through the application of a 52-item questionnaire with four sections (feelings, perceived stress, stress-reducing factors, and adaptation strategies). The study population was 227 nursing professionals from “Hospital General del Guasmo Sur” of the Ministry of Public Health, who worked during the peak of the pandemic from March to May 2020. The sample comprised 155 nurses who voluntarilyaccepted to participate. The study received 127 complete questionnaires for analysis. Results. The data showed the priority of humanist feelings and professional duty for these nurses, mostly young (59% under 35 years of age and with the professional exercise of three and fewer years), against the fear of contagion and the stress of strenuous work. They also revealed the great importance for them of the institutional support, recognition to the staff, and strict organization of safe care, like strategies for coping with this difficult experience. Conclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic represented for nurses from Guayaquil a great professional and emotional challenge. Health services and society could consider these findings to avoid burning out nurses and their professional desertion.