Several factors influencing risk perception in the area of occupational health and safety are known, but there is still lack of a full understanding of the ways in which people characterize risk. This study aimed to provide an insight of employee risk assessment and perception in the bakery industry. 87 British and 64 Greek employees in two comparable bakery companies were asked to estimate and...

In power plants, there are several places such as vessels, surface, nozzle pipes which need to be inspected and cleaned regularly. To ensure the integrity of power plant, these various places must be periodically inspected using ultrasonic sensors and visual cameras. The surfaces and many parts of the plant should be cleaned as many times as required to prevent contaminations. Cleaning of power...

Cyclical stepping (gait) has been studied extensively. Some of these results are reflected in the straight and curved path step-following algorithms in commercial digital human modeling (DHM) implementations. With the aid of these algorithms, DHM users define start, intermediate, and end path points and the software generates a walking-like motion along the path. Most of these algorithms have s...

A crane is the type of machine mainly used for handling heavy loads in different industry branches: metallurgy, paper and cement industry. By the construction, cranes are divided into the overhead and gantry cranes. An overhead crane, also known as a bridge crane, is a type of crane where the hook and line mechanism runs along a horizontal beam that itself travels on the two widely separated ra...

OBJECTIVE To describe the survey methodology and initial general findings of the first Central American Survey of Working Conditions and Health. METHODS A representative sample of 12,024 workers was interviewed at home in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Questionnaire items addressed worker demographics, employment conditions, occupational risk factors and s...

PURPOSE To investigate the pathways from level of education to low back pain (LBP) in the adult population, especially concerning the role of physical working constraints, and personal factors (overweight, tobacco consumption, and tallness). METHODS The study population consisted of 15,534 subjects from the National Health Survey, with data on LBP, level of education, personal factors, and ph...

BACKGROUND Musculoskeletal disorders in developing countries are considered as main cause of occupational disorders and disability and highly associated with socioeconomic burden to individual, organization and society in general view. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders and associated risk factors among Iranian steel workers. METHODS In a cr...

Occupational low back pain (LBP) is an immense burden for both industry and medicine. Ergonomic and personal risk factors result in LBP, but psychosocial factors can influence LBP disability. Epidemiologic studies clearly indicate the role of mechanical loads on the etiology of occupational LBP. Occupational exposures such as lifting, particularly in awkward postures; heavy lifting; or repetiti...

Demand of electricity varies on hourly basis whereas the production is quite inelastic. This results in heavy fluctuation in the price of the electrical energy. Consequently many power companies have started offering time based tariffs. Data centers and industrial consumers of electricity are penalized for the peak power demand of their loads. To shave the peak power demand, a battery buffer ca...