Comparison of ergonomic risk assessment outputs from Rapid Upper Limb Assessment and the Strain Index for tasks in automotive assembly plants

This paper compares the ergonomic risk assessment of a task for the upper extremities as determined by Rapid Upper Extremity Assessment (RULA) and the Strain Index (SI). The ergonomic risk to the upper extremities of 244 automotive assembly plant tasks were evaluated using RULA and SI. The outcomes of each tool were compared for each task. Results from this study provide practical insight into the methods used in each tool. This study compared only the ergonomic risk outputs from each tool; it does not pursue the question of which tool best predicts injury. The kappa score was 0.11, indicating little agreement between the outputs of the two tools. This is supported by the lack of monotonicity with a gamma score of 0.1. These results indicate that the risk assessment outcome of these two ergonomic assessment tools for the upper extremities do not agree.     

A Socio-Economic Index for Occupations In Canada*

Le travail a requls une revision de l'échelle de Blishen faite en attribuant à des catégories des titres d'emplois du recensement des valeurs approximatives selon l'échelle de prestige Pineo-Porter. On a calculé le pourcentage de la main-d'oeuvre masculine de chaque profession ayant un revenu d'au moins $5,000 et ayant frequenté a l'école au moins la quatrième annèe du secondaire. Le calcul d'une équation de la droite des mindres carrés fut fait, en utilisant comme variable dépendante les valeurs de l'échelle Pineo-Porter pour 88 occupations comparables à l'ensemble de la liste et comme variables indépendantes les niveaux de revenu et de scolarité. Les coefficients de régression obtenus furent utilisés ensuite pour attribuer à chacune des 320 occupations une valeur en termes socioé-conomiques. Chaque occupation se vit attribuer ensuite un rang selon l'indice socio-économique developé de la sorte.     

Insularity and Governance: The Case of French Polynesia

Insularity, smallness and remoteness help explain specific tendencies noted in the governance of French Polynesia, a partially self-governing French overseas territory in the South Pacific, with a population of 220,000. Professional relations tend to become personalized, and impersonal and impartial procedures are hard to apply. The market for experts is small: some people are able to claim a monopoly on some type of expertise and then defend it by every means. Solidarity is vertical, not horizontal, which makes for a fragile democracy.     

Habitual and Occasional Lobbyers in the U.S. Steel Industry: An Em Algorithm Pooling Approach

Using U.S. steel firm data, we find that lobbying for import protection appears to be habit-forming. To identify heterogeneity in lobbying behavior among firms, we use an expectation-maximization algorithm to sort our firms into groups with different propensities to lobby and estimate the determinants of lobbying in each group. A two-pool model emerges: occasional lobbyers' lobbying depends on their market performance, and habitual lobbyers' lobbying only depends on past lobbying. The latter tends to be larger steel firms whose business is more focused in steel. Our evidence is consistent with dynamic economies of scale in protection seeking breeding protection-dependent firms.     

A retrospective study of attitudes and triggers towards gambling of prisoners before their incarceration in Australia

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between attitudes towards gambling, triggers for gambling, and the severity of the gambling problem of convicted offenders before their incarceration. Participants were recruited through transitional managers of prisons. There were 96 referrals, of which 66 participants completed the study. Results showed that there was a significant correlation between the Gambling Attitudes and Beliefs Survey (GABS) and the Inventory of Gambling Situations (IGS) and a significant correlation between the IGS and the EIGHT Gambling Screen. However, no significant correlation was found between the EIGHT Gambling Screen and the GABS. The results indicated that attitudes towards and beliefs about gambling did not directly influence the severity of the participants’ gambling problem. Attitudes and beliefs were more closely linked to their triggers for gambling, and these triggers carried more weight in the severity of their gambling problem. These results suggest that problem gamblers need assistance in dealing with their trigger situations for gambling as well as receiving a therapeutic programme to change their attitudes towards and beliefs about gambling.