Control centers design for ergonomics and safety

This paper shows the general design conditions about ergonomics and safety for control centers in the petrochemical process industry. Some of the topics include guidelines for the optimized workstation design, control room layout, building layout, and lighting, acoustical and environmental design. Also takes into account the safety parameters in the control rooms and centers design. The conditions and parameters shown in this paper come from the standards and global advances on this topic on the most recent publications. And also the work was supplemented by field visits of our team to the control center operations in a petrochemical company, and technical literature search efforts. This guideline will be useful to increase the productivity and improve the working conditions at the control rooms.     

Integer-valued autoregressive processes with periodic structure

In this paper the periodic integer-valued autoregressive model of order one with period T, driven by a periodic sequence of independent Poisson-distributed random variables, is studied in some detail. Basic probabilistic and statistical properties of this model are discussed. Moreover, parameter estimation is also addressed. Specifically, the methods of estimation under analysis are the method of moments, least squares-type and likelihood-based ones. Their performance is compared through a simulation study.     

Support and Access in Sports and Leisure Provision

This paper will look at different ways of enabling people with learning difficulties to engage in leisure opportunities: the Support Model and the Access Model. These models will be put in their social context and then critiqued.

The support model will be be contextualised in the theory of normalisation, access in disability theory. The support worker role will be shown to be useful in motivating people with learning difficlties into new activities, as well as having a protecting element, and unwittingly, disguise the level of discrimination people with learning difficulties are subject to.

The access worker role will be shown to have strengths in understanding discrimi nation. With this analysis, it has the potential to dismantle disabling practices. However, the needs of people with learning difficulties have ramifications for disability theory. In practice, that means that ideas of self-advocacy need to be taken on board.

Through interviews with sports personnel, social workers and people with learning difficulties, the implications of creating fully comprehensive access will be examined. I will conclude that both effective support and comprehensive access must be in place before people with learning difficulties are able to make a meaningful choice as to how they are enabled to participate in sports. It is only at that point of choice that the two models become complementary rather than competing discourses of provision.     

Revisiting the Structure of Subjective Well-Being in Middle-Aged Adults

Subjective well-being is a broad, multifaceted construct comprising general satisfaction with life, satisfaction with life domains (health, family, people, free time, self, housing, work, and finances), positive affect, and negative affect. Drawing on representative data from middle-aged adults (N = 738), the authors used three different structural models to analyze the interrelationships among these facets of subjective well-being. In a top-down model, a single factor representing global subjective well-being explained the correlations found among the more specific facets of subjective well-being and exerted the strongest influence on general satisfaction with life, satisfaction with health, and satisfaction with finances. In a bottom-up model, satisfaction with the latter two domains had the strongest effect on global subjective well-being. The authors discuss the implications of their findings for research on subjective well-being.     

The effect of violent crime on teenage pregnancy in Mexico

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper explores the effect of violent crime on teenage pregnancy in Mexico using data from a nationally representative longitudinal survey conducted...     

Circular balanced repeated measurements designs

The concept of a circular design is defined and when proper balance for various effects is assumed, its universal optimality is proved over the class of all designs with the same set of parameters, Such designs are shown to minimize the variance of the best linear unbiased estimators of contrasts of residual and direct effects over the class of equireplicated designs. All models assume first order residual effects and are of a circular nature. The proofs are presented in a unified manner for several models at a time. They are based on certain matrix domination which occurs when parameters are eliminated from a linear modelj this latter fact is proved for a general linear model.     

Family Discussion Groups for Patients with Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study

This pilot study investigated the benefits of discussion groups for patients with chronic pain and their family members. Nineteen patients with chronic pain and 41 relatives participated in four consecutive groups. Most patients and family members found their participation clearly helpful for themselves and for the family. The group helped them to improve communication, support and mutual relationships, and to better cope with the pain. Reported beneficial factors were experiencing communality, having a place to discuss things with each other, gaining insights, and learning from fellow‐sufferers and their own family. Post treatment, patients also felt less distressed by the pain, less depressed, less insufficient and showed an increase in life‐control and social activities. Moreover, some aspects of the family climate improved, but only in the perception of the family members. The present study points to the value of a multifamily format in chronic pain therapy and suggests the appropriateness of further controlled investigation.     

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.