Relationship between construction workers' musculoskeletal disorders and occupational health service activities

Construction work consists of numerous factors that influence workers' occupational health and that load the musculoskeletal system in particular. Musculoskeletal disorders are responsible for over a third of all sick leaves lasting over nine days in the construction industry. Occupational health services (OHS) were organized for 85% of the construction workers in our study. The proportion of construction workers who had suffered from chronic or repetitive neck and shoulder, shoulder or arm, or low-back disorders was 55.6%, 44.8% and 42.1%, respectively. Those who felt that they had received enough information, advice or guidance from OHS concerning work posture, work performance or work tools were more often those who had not suffered from shoulder or arm disorders (60.9% vs. 39.1%, p=.024, respectively) or low-back disorders (63.6% vs. 36.4%, p=.034, respectively) during the last month than those who had. Those who had received enough support from OHS concerning maintenance of work ability were more often workers who had not suffered from low-back disorders during the last month than those who had (63.3% vs. 36.7%, p=.004, respectively). OHS should focus more on workers who would really benefit from their activities at a particular time and in a particular situation (primary, secondary or tertiary prevention) and who are themselves devoted to improving their health.     

Avian Flu and Embodied Global Imagery: A Study of Pandemic Geopolitics in the Media

Avian influenza is caused by viruses adapted to birds. The causative agents can, in rare cases, spread to humans, although no human-to-human transmission has been demonstrated. However, the mere possibility of mutation into a human form allowed for media, states and international organizations to speculate about the meaning of the disease's movement across species and localities. The hypothetical scenarios focused on national preparedness and resilience. Such imageries of elastic and shock absorbing communities offer insights into how diseases are used to contain and border in an age of vanishing boundaries and interconnected global reaches. This study tracks the historical trajectory of public cognitions regarding avian flu as it turned from an ordinary livestock disease into a hyperbolic mutable ‘killer disease’. Excerpts from articles carried in The New York Times and Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish mainstream daily, are used to map how the disease turned into a register of the hostilities inherent in the world. In the American public cognition, the tangible disease threat was triggered when the dangers of mutation were associated with China. For the small peripheral Finland, the pandemic scare instigated public imaginaries of a resilient and efficient Nordic society.

La influenza aviar es causada por virus adaptados a los pájaros. En casos raros, los agentes causativos pueden propagarse a humanos, aunque no se ha demostrado ninguna transmisión entre humanos. Sin embargo, la simple posibilidad de mutación a una forma humana, permitió a los medios, estados y organizaciones internacionales especular sobre el sentido del movimiento de la enfermedad entre las especies y localidades. Los escenarios hipotéticos se enfocaron en la preparación y resistencia nacionales. Tales imágenes de comunidades elásticas y absorbentes de impactos ayudan a comprender mejor cómo se usan las enfermedades para contener y colindar fronteras en una época que están desapareciendo y de extensa interconexión global. Este estudio sigue la trayectoria histórica de conocimiento público respecto a la gripa aviar cuando pasó de una enfermedad ordinaria de ganado a una ‘enfermedad mortal’ hiperbólica mutable. Extractos de artículos publicados en el New York Times y el Helsinki Sanomat, un diario finlandés predominante, se usaron para representar cómo la enfermedad se convirtió en un registro de las hostilidades inherentes en el mundo. En el conocimiento americano, la amenaza tangible de la enfermedad se desencadenó cuando los peligros de la mutación fueron asociados con China. Para la pequeña Finlandia, el susto pandémico instigó la imaginación pública de una resistente y eficiente sociedad nórdica.

禽流感是由鸟类携带的病毒引起的。尽管目前还未发现人到人传播的案例,但在某些罕见的情况下,这些病原体可以传染给人类。尽管如此,仅仅是能变异为人类病毒的可能性就足以让媒体、国家和国际组织思考这种跨物种和地域的病毒传播的后果。这种假想关注国家的准备情况和应变能力。这种关于具有弹性和能吸收震荡的社会的意象让我们能够洞察,在一个边界正在消失、各领域相互联系的时代中,疾病可以如何被用来阻止国家边界的消失并界定国家边界。禽流感已经从一种普通的家畜疾病变为一种夸张的可变异的致命疾病。本文追踪了这一公众认知变化的历史轨迹。通过刊登在《纽约时报》和芬兰主流日报《赫尔辛基新闻》上的文章节选,本文表明了禽流感是如何变为各国固有敌意的记录器的。在美国的公众认知中,禽流感在中国的变异危险导致了这场有形的疾病威胁。对于处于边缘的小国芬兰而言,这种禽流感大流行的恐慌驱使公众想象一个灵活高效的北欧社会。

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Strategic versus non-strategic voting power in the EU Council of Ministers: the consultation procedure

This article evaluates the distribution of power within the Council of the European Union from the a priori perspective of constitutional design using two distinct approaches: (1) applying traditional voting power indices; (2) carrying out strategic equilibrium analysis of the EU’s consultation procedure. It clarifies why both approaches lead to different power indications, and investigates the determinants of the differences’ magnitudes. Depending on one’s assumptions about behavior of the consultation procedure’s agenda setter, the European Commission, traditional indices turn out to deliver a good approximation also of relative strategic power in the Council.     

Returns to scale vs. damages to scale in data envelopment analysis: An impact of U.S. clean air act on coal-fired power plants

This study proposes a use of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to measure Returns to Scale (RTS) of US coal-fired power plants. The power plants produce not only desirable outputs (e.g., electricity) but also undesirable outputs (e.g., CO₂ and NO_x) as a result of their plant operations. Therefore, the proposed use of DEA also measures a new concept, or “DTS: Damages to Scale” (corresponding to RTS for undesirable outputs). Both scale measures discussed in this study are a quick-and-easy approach for assessing RTS and DTS, but not an exact method, because it does not consider a direct linkage between the two measures. This study applies the proposed approach to examine the legal validity of U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA). We find that the CAA has been legally effective and influential on the operation of coal-fired power plants in the United States because their plant operations belong to increasing RTS on a desirable output and increasing DTS on three undesirable outputs. The increasing DTS indicates a need for managerial improvement and/or engineering innovation such as advanced clean coal technology. This empirical result implies that U.S. federal and state governments need to expand the legal scope of CAA to the emission control of CO₂ because the current CAA excludes the regulation on CO₂ emission that is now considered as a main source of the global warming and climate change.     

Does shift work lead to poorer health habits? A comparison between women who had always done shift work with those who had never done shift work

Shift work has been reported to predict health problems, and a possible explanation is that shift work may lead to poorer health habits, thereby increasing a person's vulnerability to illness. This study examined the association between shift work and health habits, as indicated by smoking, alcohol intake, physical activity and by being overweight. A questionnaire was sent to all 2795 female nurses working in the 10 hospitals of two Finnish health care districts. From the 2299 respondents, we selected those 506 shift workers who reported having always done shift work and those 183 day workers who had never done shift work. Shift workers were found to smoke more and to be overweight more often than day workers. These differences gradually increased in each successive age group, being 1.94 pack-years in smoking and 0.9 kg m^-2 in body mass index among nurses over 45 years of age. Shift work was not associated with alcohol intake or sedentary lifestyle. This evidence is compatible with the possibility that shift work in nurses increases smoking and being overweight to a degree that contributes to health problems, including coronary heart disease.     

The Organization of Wariness of Heights in Experienced Crawlers

Most infants with more than 6 weeks of crawling experience completely avoid the deep side of a visual cliff ( Campos, Bertenthal, & Kermoian, 1992 ; Gibson & Walk, 1960 ). However, some experienced crawlers do move onto the transparent surface suspended several feet above the ground. An important question is whether these nonavoiders lack wariness of heights or whether they have a qualitatively different way of showing their wariness than do avoiders of the deep side. The current study addressed this question by measuring heart rate (HR) acceleration upon being lowered on the deep and shallow sides of the visual cliff, latency to crawl toward the mother, and tactile exploration of the cliff surface. Nonavoiders and avoiders had indistinguishable patterns of HR acceleration, showing greater HR acceleration when lowered onto the deep than when lowered onto the shallow side of the cliff. Nonavoiders also showed more tactile exploration and longer latencies than did a comparable group of infants tested on the shallow side. This study illustrates how the same emotion, wariness of heights, can be shown by qualitatively different behaviors, all serving the same function of protecting the individual from falling over a drop‐off.     

Scheduling algorithms for computer-aided line balancing in printed circuit board assembly

Generalized flexible flow line (GFFL) is a scheduling environment comprising several machine banks which the products visit in the same order but can skip some machine banks. The type of machines in a bank can differ but they are suitable for performing the same manufacturing tasks. To change one product to another demands a set-up operation of the machine. This paper describes several scheduling algorithms for the GFFL problem. The overall structure of these algorithms is similar, consisting of machine allocation and sequencing phases. The algorithms have been integrated into an interactive production scheduling system for electronics assembly. Sample cases are used to illustrate the operation of the system in practice.     

Job demands and job control as correlates of early retirement thoughts in Finnish social and health care employees

Given the ageing workforce, there is an increasing interest in understanding the retirement process. This study examined whether early retirement thoughts can be explained by job demands, job control and their interaction, a hypothesis derived from the job demand-control model of Karasek (). The moderated hierarchical regression analyses of early retirement thoughts were based on a sample of 274 male and 2798 female employees aged 20 to 65 years in Finnish social and health care. Our results suggest that job demands and job control are independent predictors of early retirement thoughts even when adjusted for age, gender, educational level and self-rated health. Furthermore, our results offered support for the interaction effect of job demands and job control on early retirement thoughts. Among people over 45 years old, these associations were even stronger, compared to the whole sample. This indicates that one way to reduce the number of people taking early retirement would be to put the emphasis on psychosocial factors, such as job control, affecting the older workers.     

Transnational retirement mobility as processes of identity negotiation: the case of Japanese in South-east Asia

ABSTRACT

The increasing mobility of Japanese retirees to South-east Asia is part of a larger political economy reconfiguration in the region. This article argues that in order to fully appreciate the underlying dynamics of transnational retirement mobility, we should understand the mobility as processes of contestation over the seemingly simple question of ‘who is a retiree migrant?’. The governments of the destination countries and an emerging retirement industry strive to turn the retiree migrants into a particular type of high-value consumer subject. But the retirees see themselves as pragmatic individuals who seek to enjoy low living costs in South-east Asia in a time of economic uncertainty. The article sheds new light on transnational retirement mobility by examining how the retirees explore their sense of self while interacting with various actors. By linking it with the Foucauldian notion of subject making, this article deepens our understanding of identity negotiation in a transnational context.