Translating cross-lagged effects into incidence rates and risk ratios: The case of psychosocial safety climate and depression

Longitudinal studies are the gold standard of empirical work and stress research whenever experiments are not plausible. Frequently, scales are used to assess risk factors and their consequences, and cross-lagged effects are estimated to determine possible risks. Methods to translate cross-lagged effects into risk ratios to facilitate risk assessment do not yet exist, which creates a divide between psychological and epidemiological work stress research. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate how cross-lagged effects can be used to assess the risk ratio of different levels of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) in organisations, an important psychosocial risk for the development of depression. We used available longitudinal evidence from the Australian Workplace Barometer (N?=?1905) to estimate cross-lagged effects of PSC on depression. We applied continuous time modelling to obtain time-scalable cross effects. These were further investigated in a 4-year Monte Carlo simulation, which translated them into 4-year incident rates. Incident rates were determined by relying on clinically relevant 2-year periods of depression. We suggest a critical value of PSC?=?26 (corresponding to ?1.4 SD), which is indicative of more than 100% increased incidents of persistent depressive disorder in 4-year periods compared to average levels of PSC across 4 years.     

Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

A New Methodology for Before–After Safety Assessment Using Survival Analysis and Longitudinal Data

The widely used empirical Bayes (EB) and full Bayes (FB) methods for before–after safety assessment are sometimes limited because of the extensive data needs from additional reference sites. To address this issue, this study proposes a novel before–after safety evaluation methodology based on survival analysis and longitudinal data as an alternative to the EB/FB method. A Bayesian survival analysis (SARE) model with a random effect term to address the unobserved heterogeneity across sites is developed. The proposed survival analysis method is validated through a simulation study before its application. Subsequently, the SARE model is developed in a case study to evaluate the safety effectiveness of a recent red‐light‐running photo enforcement program in New Jersey. As demonstrated in the simulation and the case study, the survival analysis can provide valid estimates using only data from treated sites, and thus its results will not be affected by the selection of defective or insufficient reference sites. In addition, the proposed approach can take into account the censored data generated due to the transition from the before period to the after period, which has not been previously explored in the literature. Using individual crashes as units of analysis, survival analysis can incorporate longitudinal covariates such as the traffic volume and weather variation, and thus can explicitly account for the potential temporal heterogeneity.     

Comprehensive neighbourhood mapping: developing a powerful tool for child protection

This paper proposes ‘comprehensive neighbourhood mapping’ as a schema for gathering and interpreting information within a given geographical area which is informed by imaginative thinking about the safety of children and young people from sexual crime. It would build upon current forms of profiling by local authorities, health authorities and central Government. CNM would actively involve local people, in partnership with agencies, in ‘mapping’ danger points and support points. Eight components are discussed, including environmental issues, locations of sex offenders, sites where teenagers meet and share information, supportive individuals and organizations. Some issues for pilot projects are discussed, including the need to set up planning and implementation groups and to integrate CNM into wider child protection and community safety strategies. CNM is grounded in an ecological perspective which sees partnership approaches as essential and believes an overarching view of neighbourhood needs, based on detailed local information and understanding of how different forms of harm interconnect, is crucial in developing child protection strategies. At times of acute official anxiety about community ‘lynch‐mob’ reactions to known paedophiles, CNM aims to build communities which instead are informed and thoughtful about child protection. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

三维实体设计与工程制图课程的改革

三维实体设计是工程设计的必然趋势,设计方法的变革导致企业对人才的新需求,也给传统的工程制图课程体系带来了巨大的冲击。改革与现代生产和人才需求不相适应的教学内容,建立以三维设计为主线,以培养创新思维和创新能力为目标的工程制图新体系,是工程制图课程改革的方向。     

监理企业的综合评价与决策分析

根据层次分析法(AHP),分析如何选择最合理的监理企业,为评估准则和希望投标的监理企业构建了一个层次结构,提出了分析模型和计算方法,并给出了一个具体实例。在决策分析过程中,按综合权重大小排序,进行方案优选,为决策提供依据。该方法得出的评价结果直观,为择优决策中标监理企业提供一种科学的评价方法。     

论工程训练与创新人才培养

工程训练是重要的实践性教学环节 ,必须把工作重点转移到培养学生创新能力上来 ,创造有利于培养创新人才的环境 ,传授给学生丰富的创新知识基础 ,改革教学内容、教学方法、教学手段和考核办法 ,以保证培养创新人才的需要 ,并注意培养学生各种创新素质 ,鼓励学生创新 ,促进其创新能力的发展     

日本东京大学理工科的学术组织与创新

学术组织创新是学术繁荣的制度保证 ,也是任何一流大学的成功奥秘。作为日本理工科龙头老大的东京大学 ,在二战后 5 0年的发展历程中 ,向世人提供了工程教育和研究中的三种特色鲜明的学术组织模式。这种学术组织模式对中国建设世界一流大学有重要借鉴意义     

更高层次的迈进——企业相对社会责任的实现

相对社会责任的承担与实现,对企业自身和社会都具有重大意义,但由于缺乏机制的制约和策略的应用,其实现是困难的。正确处理企业利益与社会责任的关系,促使更多企业从履行绝对社会责任,上升到追求更高层次社会责任的实现,一方面需要外在环境的保障,另一方面要求企业在履行社会责任时,注意策略选择。     

城市公众安全文化教育的方法与思路——兼议北京2008“安全奥运文化”普及问题

通过对安全文化发展演变历史的简单回眸,探讨了适用于城市安全减灾的安全文化教育的模式及方法,尤其从文化建设层面上研究了应用安全文化建设方法的特点。作为最现实的应用,还就2008年北京“安全奥运”的系统化建设提出了“安全奥运文化”普及教育的思路。