(Mis)understanding Safety Culture and Its Relationship to Safety Management

Although the concept of safety culture was coined in relation to major accidents like Chernobyl and Piper Alpha, it has been embraced by the safety community at large as a cause for unsafe practice. In this article, three approaches to safety culture are discussed in terms of their underlying concepts of culture and organizational culture. Culture is an intangible, fuzzy concept encompassing acquired assumptions that is shared among the members of a group and that provides meaning to their perceptions and actions and those of others. The basic assumptions that form the essence of a culture are shared, yet tacit, convictions, which manifest themselves subtly in the visible world. As applied by safety researchers, the culture concept is deprived of much of its depth and subtlety, and is morphed into a grab bag of behavioral and other visible characteristics, without reference to the meaning these characteristics might actually have, and often infused with normative overtones. By combining the three approaches, we can resurrect the notion of safety culture and strengthen its analytical potential in understanding the development and implementation of safety management systems.     

风险社会理论对我国学校安全问题的启示

近年来，我国学校关于伤害学生人身安全的事件频发，引发了人们对校园安全问题极大的忧虑。透过风险社会理论视角，可以看出：学校安全问题的发生范围是全球性的，多数校园安全问题来自人为问题，是现代性变异的产物，需认真自省当代教育的目的以找到解决学校安全问题的途径。     

Recent changes in FDA's good laboratory practice regulations

In the Federal Register of December 22, 1978, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published regulations which described Good Laboratory Practice for safety tests conducted on regulated products (Anonymous, 1978). The regulations, popularly known as GLPs, have become universally recognized as the basic criteria for the conduct of a valid safety test and for assuring the quality and integrity of the collected data. Along with the publication of the GLPs, FDA instituted a vigorous program of inspection of toxicology laboratories to determine the degree of adherence to the regulations. In 1984, based on inspectional findings which revealed that a large majority of toxicology laboratories were adhering to the GLPs, FDA published a proposal intended to reduce the burden of compliance with the regulations (Anonymous, 1984). The proposal outlined major changes in the provisions on quality assurance, protocol preparation, test and control article characterization, and retention of specimens and samples. The final order based on the proposal was published in the federal register of September 4, 1987 (Anonymous). The purpose of this communication is to describe the procedures used by FDA to develop the final order, to discuss certain major issues that arose during its development, and to answer several questions that have arisen subsequently.     

The Digital Practitioner:

No abstract available for this article.     

A randomized,double-blind,placebo-controlled trial of testosterone gel on body composition and health-related quality-of-life in men with hypogonadal to low-normal levels of serum testosterone and symptoms of androgen deficiency over 6 months with 12 months open-label follow-up

Introduction: The clinical significance of low to low-normal testosterone (T) levels in men remains debated. Aim: To analyze the effects of raising serum T on lean body mass (LBM), fat mass (FM), total body mass, and health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL). Methods: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Men, aged 50–80 years, with serum total T<15 nmol/L and bioavailable T < 6.68 nmol/L, and a Aging Males’ Symptoms (AMS) total score >36, received 6 months treatment with transdermal 1% T gel (5–7.5?mg/day; n =183) or placebo gel (n =179), followed by 12 months open-label with T in all. Results: After 6 months, LBM increased in T- treated patients by 1.28?±?0.15?kg (mean ± SE) and FM decreased by 1.16?±?0.16?kg, with minor changes with placebo (LBM +0.02?±?0.10?kg and FM ?0.14?±?0.12?kg; all p < 0.001, T group vs. placebo). Changes were largely similar across subgroups of age, baseline total testosterone, and baseline BMI. Total HRQoL improved compared with placebo (p < 0.05, T group vs. placebo). Conclusions: Six months 1% T gel improved body composition and HRQoL in symptomatic men with low to low-normal T, with further improvements over the following 12 months.     

危害食品安全刑事案件具体法律应用问题研究

食品安全事故频发，保障食品安全已引起社会广泛关注。刑法作为保障食品安全的最后一道屏障，由于其对危害食品安全犯罪的定性不当、保护范围较窄、保护滞后等问题，有大量危害食品安全犯罪案件未进入司法程序，凸显了刑法在惩处食品安全犯罪行为过程中的乏力，也在一定程度上纵容了危害食品安全的犯罪行为。应借鉴美国立法，完善我国危害食品安全犯罪刑事立法，形成严密的刑事立法体系，克服危害食品安全犯罪在刑法规制上的不足。     

基于案例的水体污染公共安全事件诱发过程分析

把握水体污染公共安全事件诱发过程和阶段是合理预警与应对的前提。以松花江水体污染公共安全事件为例,采用案例研究,归纳分析水体污染公共安全事件诱发过程的六个阶段：常态水体污染阶段,水体污染积累阶段,水体污染警告阶段,水体污染人工干预阶段,水体污染危害潜伏阶段,触发事件阶段。     

国际慢城运动及其对我国城市建设的启示

在全球化的时代背景下,兴起于意大利的慢食和慢城运动,已经成为对抗速食文化尤其是文化趋同化的一种体现。近年来,国内学者更是将慢城理念引入我国城市建设、小城镇建设中,因此有关慢城运动的内涵以及慢城对于全球化问题的思考就显得尤为重要。将意大利慢食、慢城运动的兴起置于全球化背景中,探讨慢城运动的缘起、内涵、特质等,使之给我国城市建设带来一些思考和启发。     

The structure of employee attitudes to safety: A European example

This paper concerns organizational safety culture and the structure or architecture of employee attitudes to safety as part of that culture. It begins by reviewing the somewhat scant literature relevant to this area, and then reports a study, conducted in a European company, which collected and factor analysed data on employee attitudes to safety. The framework provided for the study was that offered by Purdham (1984), and the results suggested that employees' attitudes to safety, within this company (across occupation/occupational level and country), could be mapped By five orthogonal factors: personal scepticism, individual responsibility, the safeness of the work environment, the effectiveness of arrangements for safety, and personal immunity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and attention is drawn to their subsequent use in an intervention to enhance safety culture within the organization by attacking supervisors' attitudes to safety.     

Risk Homeostasis Theory and Traffic Accident Data

The risk homeostasis theory posits, in essence, that a control mechanism analogous to the thermal homeostatic system in warm-blooded animals tends to keep risk per unit time constant, and, as a consequence, the number of traffic accidents per unit time of driving also tends to remain constant, essentially independent of changes in the traffic safety system. It is the purpose of the present research to examine the validity of this claim using a wide variety of traffic accident data. All the data examined are found to be incompatible with the risk homeostasis theory. The only specific field accident data offered in the literature to support the risk homeostasis theory are found to, in fact, refute the theory. The accident data provide evidence that a rich variety of user responses occur. While it is possible for users to collectively respond in such a way that safety benefits are completely cancelled, such a response is not particularly common; it is certainly not universally occurring, as suggested by the risk homeostasis theory. It is concluded that the risk homeostasis theory should be rejected because there is no convincing evidence supporting it and much evidence refuting it.