Economic incentives and the epidemiological indicators can contribute to the reduction of occupational hazards?

This article intends to discuss the interfaces of Decree No. 6042 and the adoption of its guidelines as a strategy to reduce the occupational hazards.     

Capacity constraints and the dynamics of underwriting profits

The presence of an underwriting profit cycle in property/liability insurance has become a stylized fact. Models of this'underwriting cycle'imply that the insurance market is governed by two regimes, as capacity is constrained or not. We apply the smooth transition regression model to insurance industry data for 1934–1993 to test for a regime shift. We find a rapid shift between two distinct regimes with different dynamics. When capacity is not restricted, we find no evidence of a cycle. The cycle is present in periods when capacity is restricted, immediately following World War II and after 1968. The underwriting cycle appears to be a recent phenomenon.     

The effects of smoking laws on seating allocations of restaurants, bars, and taverns

Supporters of smoking laws often argue that they do not harm restaurants, bars, and taverns and may even raise their profits. Opponents argue that owners cater to customer preferences regarding smoking and that laws mandating specific smoking policies will therefore negatively impact profits of some firms. This article tests hypotheses regarding how smoking laws affect seating allocations, using data from a nationwide survey of restaurant and bar owners. The empirical evidence indicates that smoking laws exert no significant effect on seating allocations. Firms are shown to allocate greater shares of seating to nonsmoking use when customers exhibit stronger preferences for such seating.     

自动往返电动小汽车的设计原理与制作方法

本文介绍了采用脉冲主动采集、计数程序控制、虚拟脉冲复位、撞击转向的方式完成自动往返电动小汽车的构思、设计及制作的方法。     

Work-related mild-moderate traumatic brain injury and the construction industry

Background: Consequences of traumatic brain injury underscore the need to study high-risk groups. Few studies have investigated work-related traumatic brain injuries (WrTBIs) in the construction industry. Objective: To examine WrTBIs in Ontario for the construction industry compared to other industries. Methods: A retrospective study of individuals who sustained a WrTBI and had a clinical assessment as an outpatient at a hospital-based referral centre. Data were collected for a number of factors including demographic, injury and occupation and were analyzed according to the Person-Environment-Occupation (PEO) model. Participants: 435 individuals who sustained a WrTBI. Results: There were 19.1% in the construction industry, 80.9% in other industries. Compared to other industries, individuals in the construction industry were more likely to be male, to not have attained post-secondary education, and experience multiple traumas. WrTBIs in the construction industry were commonly due to elevated work. The construction occupations involved included skilled workers and general labourers, and compared to other industries, WrTBIs occurred most often for those employed for a short duration in the construction industry.Conclusions: Construction industry workers experience serious WrTBIs that are amenable to prevention. Use of the PEO model increased our understanding of WrTBIs in the construction industry.     

Use of a case study in sequencing/scheduling research

This paper describes a study of an industrial sequencing/scheduling problem. The study contains the definition of the problem, data requirements and examination of solution technique. Definition of the problem is discussed from the aspect of uniqueness of the specific system. Discussion of data requirements includes availability and accuracy, while examination of solution technique considers limitation of time, computer capacity, etc., as well as the possibility of imbedding available algorithms into the solution procedure. Conclusions are presented relative to the use of the case study approach in sequencing/scheduling research.     

A hierarchical theory of occupational segregation and wage discrimination

Becker's model of discrimination is extended to the case where men exhibit distastes for working under female managers. The distribution of women in the resulting occupational hierarchy depends on the number of women in lower occupations, the wages of male workers in lower occupations, and male distastes for female management. Thus, there exists an occupational sorting function, related to wages, that determines the occupational distribution of women. We integrate this sorting function into a standard wage equation to derive a new decomposition of male-female wage differentials and apply it to a sample of insurance industry workers from the 1988 CPS.     

Quick Exposure Check (QEC): a cross-cultural adaptation into Brazilian-Portuguese

Most instruments used by occupational safety and health professionals have been originally developed in English. Cross-cultural adaptation enables the use of these instruments in other countries, cultures and languages in countries like Brazil, where the official language is not English. This methodology ensures that the translation process includes the cultural and linguistic equivalence between the original instrument and the translated version. Therefore, this study aimed to translate and cross-culturally adapt the instrument Quick Exposure Check (QEC) into Brazilian-Portuguese. The process of cross-cultural adaptation followed the steps of translation, synthesis, back-translation, expert committee review and pretesting. The final questionnaire was pretested by two raters in 40 workers employed in an expedition of knitting and textile industry. All versions resulting from the translation process (T1, T2) and back-translation (BT1, BT2) showed good agreement. During the pre-test was not presented any difficulty in understanding or completing the instrument adapted QEC for Brazilian language.     

Testing the equality of location parameters of exponential populations from censored samples

The modified Tiku test and the modified likelihood ratio test proposed by Tiku and Vaughan (1991) for k=2 exponential populations are extended to . k > 2 populations. These tests are shown to be more powerful than the test proposed by Kambo and Awad (1985). Unlike the Kambo-Awad test, the proposed tests are shown to have almost symmetric power functions. Further, these tests can be applied when there is both left or right censoring present, in contrast to the tests of Sukhatme (1937), Bain and Englehardt (1991) and Elewa et al. (1992), who assume that there is no left censoring.