Cognitive and organizational ergonomics in the transition of the new integrated center of control of an oil refinery: human reliability and administration of changes

The conception of a product is closely tied to its adaptation level to the users. In this view, designers are increasingly oriented to survey the needs and features of the users. This paper aims at developing a diagnosis of employees working in high-complexity activities in a petrochemical company, in light of the physical and operating changes in the Integrated Center of Control; assessing the reception sensibility to changes; assessing the cognitive pattern of the group; and making suggestions that might eliminate or minimize the difficulties in the transition process of the change, in order to reduce the adaptation period. The field of study comprised 111 production, transfer and storage operators, forming 5 groups of desktop activities. The stages of the study followed the following flow: survey of the prescribed tasks and organizational structure; Concentrated Attention test; application of the Work and Disease Risks Inventory (ITRA, Portuguese acronym); and structured psychological interview. The ITRA results pointed to a serious cognitive cost (3.83) for all five groups, this being the largest intervention focus. The items: division of task contents (3.52), social professional relationships (2.93), quality of the physical environment (2.91), physical cost (3.24), emotional cost (2.71), freedom of expression (3.77), professional fulfillment (3.41); experience and suffering (2.75), lack of recognition (2.18) and physical injuries (2.07) were considered critical. Meanwhile, social damages (1.64) and psychological injuries (1.35) are bearable. As to the Concentrated Attention test, most workers registered average level. In the individual interviews, workers showed that larger involvement in the process of physical, organizational and operational change in the desktops and on field works was required, as well as the follow up of implementations, so as to reduce the adaptation process and prevent rework (furniture, equipment, noise, form of communication with the area and training for the changes). As a result of the findings handed to the management and returned to the workers, several actions were implemented on ergonomic non-conformities found in the analysis. It is possible to prove the importance of the insertion of cognitive and organizational ergonomics in the building projects of new facilities for high-complexity activities in petrochemical plants.     

A Longitudinal Empirical Investigation of the Pathways Model of Problem Gambling

The pathways model of problem gambling suggests the existence of three developmental pathways to problem gambling, each differentiated by a set of predisposing biopsychosocial characteristics: behaviorally conditioned (BC), emotionally vulnerable (EV), and biologically vulnerable (BV) gamblers. This study examined the empirical validity of the Pathways Model among adolescents followed up to early adulthood. A prospective-longitudinal design was used, thus overcoming limitations of past studies that used concurrent or retrospective designs. Two samples were used: (1) a population sample of French-speaking adolescents (N = 1033) living in low socio-economic status (SES) neighborhoods from the Greater Region of Montreal (Quebec, Canada), and (2) a population sample of adolescents (N = 3017), representative of French-speaking students in Quebec. Only participants with at-risk or problem gambling by mid-adolescence or early adulthood were included in the main analysis (n = 180). Latent Profile Analyses were conducted to identify the optimal number of profiles, in accordance with participants’ scores on a set of variables prescribed by the Pathways Model and measured during early adolescence: depression, anxiety, impulsivity, hyperactivity, antisocial/aggressive behavior, and drug problems. A four-profile model fit the data best. Three profiles differed from each other in ways consistent with the Pathways Model (i.e., BC, EV, and BV gamblers). A fourth profile emerged, resembling a combination of EV and BV gamblers. Four profiles of at-risk and problem gamblers were identified. Three of these profiles closely resemble those suggested by the Pathways Model.     

Use of a Chemical Probe to Increase Safety for Human Volunteers in Toxicokinetic Studies

To avoid interspecies extrapolation in toxicokinetics and drug development, it is convenient to directly develop human data. In that case, exposure dose should pose null or negligible risk to the exposed individual, but still be sufficiently high to allow quantification. We propose to reduce the dose received by human volunteers during exposure, and to compensate for loss of information by exposing the same volunteers to a nontoxic agent. This method was applied to develop 1,3-butadiene (BD) exposure protocols for humans. To study the potential of such a procedure, we worked with simulated data. Three exposure times (20, 10, and 5 minutes) and four exposure concentrations (2, 1, 0.8, and 0.5 ppm) were used to define 12 inhalation exposure scenarios for BD. Isoflurane was used as a probe, with simulated exposure of 20 subjects to 20 ppm isoflurane during 15 minutes. Isoflurane or BD-exhaled air concentrations were supposed to be measured 10 times. A three-compartment physiological toxicokinetic model was used to jointly describe BD and isoflurane data. For each subject, BD data were analyzed, in a Bayesian framework, either alone or together with the isoflurane data. The precision of BD metabolic rate constant or fraction metabolized was increased, and bias reduced, when BD and probe data were considered jointly. An exposure to 10 ppm x min BD and 300 ppm x min isoflurane gave equivalent precision and bias as a unique exposure to 40 ppm x min BD. The BD dose received by volunteers could therefore be at least quartered if BD exposure was supplemented with that of a probe.     

More than a Theory: A New Map of Social Thought

In this article we revisit two different temporal phases related to the publication of Serge Moscovici's book La Psychanalyse, son image et son public, and we examine two key concepts of the theory: cognitive polyphasia and anchoring. The first phase, initiated by the Durkheimian circle, gives us an opportunity to retrieve traces of the intellectual debate about collective psychology and reconsider this debate in today's light. The second, more recent phase, is inspired by classical and modern research in the field of social representation, and it serves us as a basis for a new hypothesis about anchoring. We suggest that the traditional concept of familiarisation attributed to anchoring can also have an opposite significance: it can transmit and guarantee the non‐familiar and so establish strangeness. Finally, we argue that social representations are more than a simple theory, just like the symbol is always more than what it symbolizes.     

ENTRY AND ASYMMETRIC LOBBYING: WHY GOVERNMENTS PICK LOSERS

Governments frequently intervene to support domestic industries, but a surprising amount of this support goes to ailing sectors. We explain this with a lobbying model that allows for entry and sunk costs. Specifically, policy is influenced by pressure groups that incur lobbying expenses to create rents. In expanding industries, entry tends to erode such rents, but in declining industries, sunk costs rule out entry as long as the rents are not too high. This asymmetric appropriability of rents means losers lobby harder. Thus it is not that government policy picks losers, it is that losers pick government policy. JEL: H32, P16.     

Social capital in the field of power: the case of Norway

This paper analyses social capital structures in the field of power, based on data from the Norwegian Power and Democracy Survey on elites. Separating between objectified, institutionalised, embodied, and inherited social capital, and inspired by Bourdieu's approach, we analyse the relations between social capital and the other forms of capital by way of specific multiple correspondence analysis and ascending hierarchical cluster analysis. First, we find that the level of institutionalised social capital varies from one fraction of the Norwegian elite to another. Secondly, the range of networks established through previous work experiences is related to field seniority. Thirdly, the positions of highest endogamy are situated in the religious field, and to a lesser extent, in the scientific field, and in the juridical field. Finally, the ‘core of the core’ is defined by actors who are strongly interconnected inside what is called ‘the tripartite system’, with a high level of multipositionality and intersectorial connections.     

Recession,austerity and gender: A comparison of eight European labour markets

The collapse in GDP brought about by the global economic crisis in 2008 affected female employment less than male employment, whereas austerity has been particularly harsh on women, a gendered impact described in the literature as “he‐cession to sh(e)‐austerity”. This article analyses gendered trends in the labour markets of eight European countries, decomposing quarterly changes in labour participation of women and men and in employment by sector. The “he‐cession to sh(e)‐austerity” scenario is not observed in all countries. Other channels through which austerity policies can jeopardize gender equality and women's rights are identified with reference to a typology of such policies.